Gunmen seize police department in eastern Ukraine
“Armed men in camouflage uniforms seized the police department in Slaviansk. The response will be very tough because there is a difference between protesters and terrorists,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on his Facebook page Saturday. Ukrainian special forces had been dispatched to the scene, he added.
Slaviansk is in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the Russian border. It was not immediately clear how many gunmen there were or whether they had made any demands.
Government buildings in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk have been occupied by pro-Moscow protesters who have called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to send troops into eastern Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian authorities set a
48-hour deadline for the separatists to end their occupation, but with that ultimatum having expired on Friday there has been no sign of action by police to force them out.
“I will say it again: Those who want dialogue … will have dialogue and the search for solutions. Those who are up in arms, set fire to buildings, shoot at people, police, terrorize with bats and masks, these people will face an appropriate response,” Avakov wrote in his Facebook post.
During an unannounced visit to Donetsk on Friday, acting Ukrainian premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk
promised to grant more powers to the country’s regions and that Kyiv would not clamp down on the east’s right to use the Russian language.
Kyiv has, however, fully rejected calls for an independence referendum that pro-Russia demonstrators have said should coincide with Ukraine’s snap presidential polls scheduled for May 25.
A similar referendum last month in the
Black Sea peninsula of Crimea led to the area’s seizure by Russia. Ukraine and most
Western powers have condemned the referendum as illegal.
Ukraine has been in political and economic turmoil since February, when former President Viktor Yanukovich, a Kremlin ally, fled the country in the face of mass protests against his rule.
hc/mkg (AFP, Reuters)