SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — Pro-Russia gunmen refused Saturday to release a group of European observers and accompanying Ukrainian army officers seized a day earlier in this eastern Ukrainian town, the epicenter of the pro-Moscow rebellion.

“These guys are not hostages but they are our POWs, and we intend to keep them in custody,” Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, a separatist leader and self-proclaimed mayor of Slovyansk, said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “They are NATO officers and spies who infiltrated our territory illegally, without our permission.”

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