Ukraine offers amnesty to pro-Russian rebels
On Sunday night separatists seized government buildings in Luhansk, Kharkiv and Donetsk and Ukraine has accused Russia of stirring up the unrest, though this has been denied by Moscow.
Ukraine is cautiously watching the 40,000 Russian troops that NATO has confirmed are massed on the border and is anxious that the pro-Russian rebels should not give Moscow a pretext to invade.
Launching what it called an “anti-terrorist operation” to deal with the rebels on Wednesday, the government in Kyiv said the stand-off must come to an end within 48 hours.
In Donetsk armed separatists have erected barricades outside the 11-storey regional administration building they are occupying, but Mr Turchynov told Ukraine’s parliament that there would be “no criminal prosecution of people who give up their weapons and leave the buildings”.
European MPs at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have overwhelmingly condemned the Russian annexation of Crimea in a strongly worded statement saying, “The drive for secession and integration into the Russian Federation was instigated and incited by the Russian authorities, under the cover of a military intervention.”
The PACE statement was dismissed by Russia, but on Wednesday US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke several times by telephone and agreed on the need to resolve the security situation in eastern Ukraine peacefully, US officials said.
Russia, Ukraine and the EU and US are due to meet next week for talks on the crisis.
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Russia warns Ukraine of the danger of civil war, FCO advises against travel to Ukraine and Crimea And Ray Furlong’s Analysis: The West’s clash with Russia
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