Pro-Russian detainees freed amid mayhem
Ukraine’s PM blames corrupt police for failing to quell violence in Odesa
DONETSK, UKRAINE— Divisions deepened in Ukraine’s third-largest city Sunday as pro-Russia militants attacked a police station in Odesa and freed 67 of their allies, while pro-Ukraine activists gathered with sticks and clubs and vowed to defend the southern city from the kind of takeovers that have occurred in the eastern part of the country.
The spread of the violence to Odesa has raised the stakes dramatically in the Ukraine crisis, bringing the conflict between pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine forces to the country’s most important port. The failure of the police to prevent the violence has underlined how quickly Ukraine’s security forces are losing control of their country.
Sunday’s mayhem occurred two days after 46 people died in clashes and a fire in the city. The fact that most of those victims were pro-Russia activists has given their supporters a new, raw sense of grievance.
Hundreds of pro-Russia militants took part in the attack on the police station Sunday, aimed at releasing people arrested after Friday’s fighting, according to witnesses and reporters on the scene.
The crowd chanted “Freedom for Odesa’s heroes” and “Odesa rise up” as men wearing masks and carrying sticks and shields smashed windows and surveillance cameras, and forced their way into the compound. Police gave in and released the prisoners, sparking cheers and chants of “Odesa is a Russian town,” witnesses said.
Odesa lies between the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in March, and the pro-Russia separatist region of Transnistria in Moldova, where Russia has a peacekeeping force. Concerns are mounting that Russia aims to take effective control of a huge swath of eastern and southern Ukraine, right up to Transnistria.
While Odesa has a sizable ethnic Russian minority — around 30 per cent of the population — polls have found that most residents want to remain part of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s new prime minister visited Odessa on Sunday, accusing Russia of fomenting the unrest two days earlier. Calling it a “tragedy for all Ukraine,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk also blamed a corrupt police force for failing to prevent the violence. The trouble began Friday when a pro-Ukraine rally in the city attended by thousands of soccer fans was attacked by pro-Russia separatists carrying sticks, shields and, in some cases, guns. Hours of street battles followed, and pro-Ukraine activists said three members of their group had been shot and killed. Later that evening, a pro-Ukraine mob attacked people in a pro-Russia encampment, sending them running into a nearby building that the crowd then set on fire with gasoline bombs. It was the worst day of violence in Ukraine since pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in February. Ukraine’s government put the blame on Moscow, apparently for starting the violence. “There were dozens of casualties resulting from a well-prepared and organized action against people, against Ukraine and against Odesa,” Yatsenyuk told representatives of social organizations, according to the Reuters news agency. But for the pro-Russia side, the deaths represented oppression by the Kyiv government and its supporters. Sympathizers on Sunday toured the burned-out trade union building where the deaths occurred, residents said. Many cried and brought flowers and candles.
Speakers called on a crowd that had gathered in a nearby square to seize government-owned buildings in the city.
“All of Odesa hates you now,” a man shouted at two young police officers.
Elsewhere Sunday, Ukrainian troops surrounded two rebel-held cities to the east, nearer the Russian border. But the soldiers appeared to hold back from a declared campaign to recapture the towns. Inside the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, heavily armed pro-Russia insurgents manned barricades, and residents formed lines at grocery stores and bakeries.
In the eastern city of Donetsk, another pro-Russia stronghold, at least 1,000 people marched through town chanting, “Odesa will not be forgiven.” They were led by men in black balaclavas, a handful of whom carried automatic rifles. Many people in the crowd carried sticks and clubs.
“There is no Ukraine; it was a stillborn child,” said one woman in her 50s as a Ukrainian flag was burned.