Armed pro-Russian activists raise flags in two eastern Ukraine cities
Gunmen seize police station, security office in east Ukraine
kiev — Pro-Russian militants raised their flags over official buildings in two eastern Ukrainian cities on Saturday, deepening a stand-off with Moscow which, Kiev warned, was dragging Europe closer to a ‘gas war’ that could disrupt supplies across the continent.
At least 20 men armed with pistols and rifles took over the police station and a security services headquarters in Slaviansk, about 150km from the border with Russia.
Officials said the men had seized hundreds of pistols from arsenals in the buildings. The militants replaced the Ukrainian flag on one of the buildings with the red, white and blue Russian flag.
Some local residents helped the militants build barricades out of tyres in anticipation that police would try to force them out. But it was not clear how the authorities would tackle the militants after the police chief for the region quit.
Kostyantyn Pozhydayev came out to speak to pro-Russian protesters outside his offices in the regional capital, Donetsk, and told them he was stepping down “in accordance with your demands”. Some of his officers left the building.
The protesters were occupying the ground floor of the Donetsk police headquarters and the black and orange flag adopted by pro-Russian separatists flew over the building, in place of the Ukrainian flag.
The occupations are a potential flashpoint because if protesters are killed or hurt by Ukrainian forces, that could prompt the Kremlin to intervene to protect the local Russian-speaking population, a repeat of the scenario in Crimea.
Moscow denies any plan to send in forces or split Ukraine, but the Western-leaning authorities in Kiev believe Russia is trying to create a pretext to interfere again. Nato says Russian armed forces are massing on Ukraine’s eastern border, while Moscow says they are on normal manoeuvres.
Ukraine’s acting foreign minister, Andrii Deshchytsia, said he had spoken in a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and demanded Moscow stop what he called “provocative actions”. —
slavyansk (Ukraine) — Kalashnikov-wielding gunmen on Saturday seized a police station and a security building in Ukraine’s restive eastern industrial heartland amid spreading protests to press for the heavily Russified region to join Kremlin rule.
The coordinated attacks and a failed assault on the prosecutor’s office in the local capital Donetsk underscored the volatility of the crisis ahead of peace talks between EU and US diplomats and their Moscow and Kiev counterparts in Geneva on Thursday.
The raids highlight how little sway Kiev’s untested leaders have over pro-Russians who have since April 6 controlled the Donetsk government seat and a state security building in the nearby eastern city of Lugansk.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk visited the region on Friday in a failed bid to pacify protesters with a vague promise of more sweeping regional rights.
The morning raid on the police station and a subsequent attack of the regional security service centre happened in Slavyansk — a riverside town of 100,000 about 60 kilometres north of the regional capital Donetsk.
Ukraine’s interior ministry said the first assault was led by 20 “armed men in camouflage fatigues” whose main purpose was to get a hold of 20 machineguns and 400 Makarov guns stored in the police headquarters “and to distribute them to protesters”.
“Our response will be very severe,” Interior Minister Arsen Ava- kov wrote on his Facebook page. It was not immediately clear how the local police responded or whether the gunmen had taken any hostages. But Avakov said that Ukrainian special forces had been dispatched to the scene.
“There is zero tolerance for armed terrorists,” he said.
A reporter saw the Slavyansk police station being surrounded by armed men in masks and camouflage who had set up a barricade of old tyres and dumpsters in front of the police headquarters.
The gunmen aggressively shoved aside Western reporters and only allowed Russian-speaking media anywhere near the building.
“The entire city... will defend the guys who seized this building,” Slavyansk Mayor Neli Shlepa told Russia’s Life News television outside the police headquarters.
The interior ministry said some of the same gunmen had later occupied the city’s state security service building.
“The protest participants are continuing to arm themselves with weapons seized from the police,” the interior ministry said in a statement. Ukraine’s interior minister said that a separate group of assailants had also unsuccessfully tried to seize the Donetsk prosecutor’s office
“They have all been expelled. The building has been cleared of unauthorised personnel,” Avakov wrote. “Another self-declared defence minister has been arrested,” he added.
A reporter saw a heavy police presence around the prosecutor’s office and the building under apparent government control.
The Donetsk administration centre is now being held by gunmen who have proclaimed the creation of their own “people’s republic” and called on President Vladimir Putin to send Russian troops into eastern Ukraine.
The interior minister had on Wednesday issued a veiled 48hour ultimatum for the Donetsk separatists to lay down their arms or face the possible of use of force.
But no action followed and Russia warned on Friday that any use of force wound result in Moscow boycotting the Geneva talks.
Kiev has previously said it was ready to back a partial devolution while stopping well short of creating the federation sought by Russia.
But his mediation failed, in part because the Donetsk and Lugansk gunmen also want to stage independence referendums coinciding with snap presidential polls Ukraine will stage on May 25.
Ukraine’s new authorities reject that condition because a similar vote last month in Crimea led to the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation by Russia.
Both Western leaders and Kiev have accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the unrest in order to justify a possible future invasion of eastern Ukraine — a charge Moscow flatly denies.
Kiev said that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov by telephone on Saturday to “stop the provocative activities of Russian special services in the eastern regions of Ukraine”. — AFP