News.Kyiv.Me.

Acting president Oleksander Turchinov
said in a televised address to the nation Russia was waging a war
against Ukraine by sowing disorder in the east of the country.

He said: ‘The blood of Ukrainian heroes has been shed in a war which the Russian Federation is waging against Ukraine.

‘The aggressor has not stopped and is continuing to sow disorder in the east of the country

‘The National Security and Defence Council has decided to launch a full-scale anti-terrorist operation involving the armed forces of Ukraine,’ he declared.

‘We will not allow Russia to repeat the Crimean scenario in the eastern regions of the country,’

Troops from Ukraine were seen dropping in to the region in helicopters this afternoon.

One video shows a helicopter landing near to Slovyansk with Ukraine special forces on board

Groups of men, believed to be Ukrainian special forces shortly before the helicopter arrives

Earlier today, interior minister Arsen Avakov said the men who
seized the buildings in Slovyansk had opened fire on Ukrainian special
forces sent to the city Sunday. He called on residents to remain calm
and stay at home.

An
Associated Press reporter found a bullet-ridden SUV on the side of the
road and a pool of blood on the passenger seat where the gunbattle was
supposed to have taken place.

A video reportedly taken in the aftermath of the attack, shows numerous cars with bullet holes in.

It
then pans to a man lying on the ground. A voice, speaking in Russian,
is heard to say: ‘Do you have a first aid Kit? Where did the bullet hit,
where is the pain?’

The wounded man answers: ‘It hit my chest.’

An armed pro-Russian activist stands at a makeshift checkpoint at the entrance into the eastern Ukrainian town

Pro-Moscow protesters have seized a number of government buildings in the east over the past week, undermining the authority of the interim government in the capital, Kyiv

The video then shows a man in uniform slumped against a car with blood running down his front. An assault rifle lies on the floor next to him.

A voice is then heard to say: ‘That guy was shot.’

Vladimir Kolodchenko, a lawmaker from the area who witnessed the attack, said a car with four gunmen pulled up on the road in a wooden area outside Slovyansk and open fire on Ukrainian soldiers who were standing beside their vehicles.

Both attackers and the Ukrainian servicemen left soon after the shooting.

Pro-Russian militia carrying riot shields at the police station in the eastern Ukraine town of Slovyansk yesterday

Battle lines are drawn: Crowds watch as the militia build a barrier outside the police station

The regional administration in Donetsk issued a statement, confirming one dead but said there were altogether nine wounded people.

They wouldn’t say who the wounded people were, but said the man who died was killed in gunfire outside Slovyansk.

The unrest in Slovyansk and the nearby major industrial city Donetsk were the latest shows of spiralling anger in eastern Ukraine, which has a large Russian-speaking population and was also the support base for Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president ousted in February following months of protests in Kyiv, the capital.

A masked man at a makeshift checkpoint at the entrance into Slovyansk. A Russian flag is seen in the background

Overnight, the interior minister reported an attack on a police station in the nearby city of Kramatorsk.

A video from local news website Kramatorsk.info showed a group of camouflaged men armed with automatic weapons storming the building.

The news website also reported that supporters of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic have occupied the administration building, built a barricade with tires around it and put a Russian flag nearby.

Regional news website OstroV said three key administrative buildings have been seized in another city in the area, Enakiyeve while in Mariupol, a city south of Slovyansk and just 30 miles away from the Russian border, the city hall was seized by armed masked men.

Local news website 0629.com.ua said 1,000 protesters were building a barricade around it while unknown armed men raised the Russian flag over the building.

On Saturday in Donetsk, the regional capital, witnesses said the men who entered the police building were wearing the uniforms of the Berkut, the feared riot police squad that was disbanded in February after Yanukovych’s ouster.

Berkut officers’ violent dispersal of a demonstration in Kyiv in November set off the mass protests that culminated in bloodshed in February when more than 100 people died in sniper fire.

The acting government says the snipers were police.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the men who occupied the Donetsk police building had made any demands, but the Donetsk police chief said on national television that he was forced to offer his resignation.

Ethnic Russians in Ukraine’s east widely fear that the new pro-Western Ukrainian government will suppress them.

Mr Avakov has described the unrest as ‘Russian aggression’.

In an earlier post, he said the men who seized the buildings in Slovyansk had opened fire on Ukrainian special forces sent to the city today.

He called on residents to remain calm and stay at home. In a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry ‘expressed strong concern’ that the attacks ‘were orchestrated and synchronised, similar to previous attacks in eastern Ukraine and Crimea,’ according to the State Department.

Pro-Russian militants have seized at least 400 handguns and 20 automatic weapons from the Slovyansk police station

Mr Kerry ‘made clear that if Russia didn’t take steps to de-escalate in eastern Ukraine and move its troops back from Ukraine’s border, there would be additional consequences,’ the department said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected the claims, while Mr Lavrov blamed the crisis in Ukraine on the failure of the Ukrainian government ‘to take into account the legitimate needs and interests of the Russian and Russian-speaking population’, the ministry said.

Mr Lavrov also warned that Russia may pull out of next week’s Ukraine summit if Kyiv uses force against ‘residents of the southeast who were driven to despair’.

On Saturday morning a group of pro-Russian activists armed with metal sticks seized the prosecutor’s office in Donestsk. They have left the building after talks with police. Nobody was arrested

Masked pro-Russian activists leave the regional prosecutor’s office as riot police, right, watch them

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who is in Ukraine this weekend, condemned the unrest in a Twitter post as ‘a coordinated armed action to seize control over key parts of Eastern Ukraine,’ which ‘would not have happened without Russia’.

In Slovyansk, the mayor said yesterday the men who seized the police station were demanding a referendum on autonomy and possible annexation by Russia.

Protesters in other eastern cities have made similar demands after a referendum in Crimea last month in which voters opted to split off from Ukraine, leading to annexation by Russia.

Unrest: Pro-Russian supporters hold Russian flag and the flag of the so-called Donetsk Republic (left) as they rally in front a barricade outside the regional state building in the eastern Ukrainian city

Share or comment on this article

Comments (61)

Share what you think

• 
  
  Newest
• 
  
  Oldest
• 
  
  Best rated
• 
  
  Worst rated

The comments below have not been moderated.

Who is this week’s top commenter?
Find out now