Armed men stand in front of the seized police headquarters in Slavyansk, Ukraine, yesterday. The men were dressed in camouflage uniforms when they stormed the building in Slavyansk. The previous day, pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk declared an independent ‘Peoples’ Republic’ inside the barricaded regional administration building.
AFP
Slavyansk, Ukraine
|
|
Ukraine accused Moscow of “aggression” yesterday after Kalashnikov-wielding gunmen seized two security buildings in its restive eastern rust belt amid spreading protests demanding the Russified region join Kremlin rule.
The coordinated attacks and a series of gunfights between militants and police in two eastern towns underscored the volatility of the crisis ahead of first direct talks between EU and US diplomats and their Moscow and Kiev counterparts in Geneva on Thursday.
They also threaten to lead to further violence as far right forces which hold sway over the ex-Soviet state’s western regions and which played a decisive role in this winter’s anti-government protests watch the nation of 46mn veer toward a possible breakup.
Ukraine’s foreign minister blamed the occupations on the “provocative activities of Russian special services” while a prominent nationalist called on militants in his Right Sector party - branded as a neo-Nazi organisation by Moscow - to “fully mobilise and prepare for decisive action”.
And acting president Oleksandr Turchynov convened an emergency security meeting after his interior minister reported that a “gunfight” had erupted between local security forces and militants who had attacked a police station in the eastern town of Kramatorsk.
“The authorities of Ukraine view today’s events as a display of aggression by the Russian Federation,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on his Facebook page.
Ukraine’s interim government has been facing relentless pressure from Russia since its February ouster of an unpopular Kremlin-backed president and decision to seek closer ties with the West.
The seizures highlight how little sway Kiev’s untested leaders have over pro-Russians who have since April 6 also controlled the Donetsk government seat and a state security building in the nearby eastern city of Lugansk.
Moscow has massed tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine’s eastern border after annexing the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and nearly doubled the rates it charges Kiev for gas.
Russia is now ready to demand prepayment from the cash-strapped government for future gas deliveries or halt supplies - a move that would impact at least 18 EU countries and deepen the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War.
A letter obtained by AFP and dated April 11 showed European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso calling for a common EU response to President Vladimir Putin’s latest energy warning.
A note sent by Putin on Thursday cautioning that gas transits through Ukraine may cease due to Kiev’s debts to Moscow “raises serious issues for Europe’s collective energy security,” Barroso wrote.
Barroso said the issue would be raised at a meeting tomorrow of EU foreign ministers and in a conference call with the 28-nation bloc’s energy chief.
He added that the commission would facilitate a “joint approach for a reply” to Russia.
Yesterday’s unrest began with morning raids on a police station and local security service centre in Slavyansk - a riverside town of 100,000 about 60km (35 miles) 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 seize 20 machine guns and 400 Makarov guns stored in the police headquarters “and to distribute them to protesters”.
An AFP reporter saw the Slavyansk police station surrounded by gunmen in masks and camouflage who had set up a barricade of old tyres and dumpsters in front of the police headquarters.
The interior ministry said some of the same militants had later occupied the city’s state security service 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 later reported that its forces had also repelled an attack on a Donetsk chemical factory that manufactures explosives.
“Protection of the facility, which stores a considerable amount of explosive material, has been stepped up,” the interior ministry said.
The police said a separate group of assailants had also unsuccessfully tried to seize the prosecutor’s office in Donetsk - a bustling city of 1mn that was the seat of power of president Viktor Yanukovych before his ouster and flight to Russia.
