Fighting broke out near the railway station at the heart of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk yesterday in what separatists said was an attempt by government forces to seize back the east Ukrainian city.

The government in Kiev denied sending the regular army into the centre of Donetsk, which the separatists captured in April, but said small ‘self-organised’ pro-Ukrainian groups were fighting the pro-Russian rebels in the city.

It is dangerous near the railway station!

Five people were killed and 12 wounded in clashes near the railway station and close to the airport outside Donetsk, local officials said in the industrial city that was home to about one million people before many fled the fighting in the region.

Four days after a Malaysian airliner was brought down about 60 kilometres away, rebels are jumpy in Donetsk, one of two cities they still hold after being ousted from several towns by the government forces this month.

When a rebel leader reported shooting at the railway station, dozens jumped into minibuses to join the fray, and artillery fire sent plumes of smoke skywards. But almost as quickly as the shelling started, it eased, leaving a control tower at the railway station with shattered windows.

By late afternoon, local authorities said the train service was disrupted but still running.

An electricity substation was partially destroyed, and people with suitcases were leaving the area.

“It is dangerous near the railway station!” the Donetsk city council said in a statement on its website after the shooting began, asking residents in the area to stay indoors.

It said a nine-storey house had been damaged in the shelling and that transport had been halted in the area.

“In the morning there were explosions. People are extremely worried,” said a local resident who gave her name as Natalya.

Donetsk is central to the rebel uprising against rule by Kiev, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has vowed to retake the city as part of what his administration calls an “anti-terrorist operation” against the separatists.

He has, however, instructed the army not to fight within a 40-kilometre diameter of the site of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash. But that does not cover Donetsk.