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Armed Men Seize Police Station in Eastern Ukraine City Armed Men Seize Police Station in Eastern Ukraine City
(about 4 hours later)
MOSCOW — Armed men wearing masks and camouflage uniforms seized a police station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk on Saturday morning, and looted the building of weapons, law enforcement officials said, as pro-Russian militias stepped up pressure on the central government in Kiev. DONETSK, Ukraine — Pro-Russian militants seized police stations and other security facilities in the most populous part of eastern Ukraine on Saturday, in a brush fire of violent unrest that the government in Kiev immediately denounced as Russian “aggression.”
About 400 Makarov handguns and an additional 20 automatic weapons were taken from the occupied police station, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said in a statement. “The goal of the takeover was the guns,” the ministry said. The attacks on the Police Headquarters here in Donetsk and on a police station and a state security branch in Slovyansk about 50 miles away, along with reports of shootings in several other towns, suggested a coordinated campaign to destabilize the Donetsk region, a vitally important industrial and coal-mining area that borders Russia.
Pro-Russian demonstrators have occupied a number of government buildings across eastern Ukraine in recent days, demanding secession or greater autonomy for the region. One group who seized the regional administration building in Donetsk declared the establishment of an independent republic. Six days earlier, pro-Russian activists seized the headquarters of the regional government, declared an independent People’s Republic of Donetsk, and demanded a referendum on whether to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, called an emergency meeting late Saturday of the country’s national security council to discuss the escalating crisis in the mainly Russian-speaking east of the country.
Russia, which supported a separatist referendum in Crimea and then invaded and annexed the peninsula, has not recognized that declaration so far, though the Kremlin has sternly warned the authorities in Kiev not to use force against the demonstrators. Fears that the government is losing control have been fueled by the militants’ seizing of a large number of weapons over the last week. Some 300 automatic rifles were taken from the Donetsk offices of the state security service after it was briefly taken over by pro-Russian protesters last weekend, and according to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, 400 Makarov handguns and 20 automatic weapons were looted on Saturday from the occupied police station in Slovyansk. “The goal of the takeover was the guns,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Ukrainian interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said on Saturday that special forces had been deployed to Slovyansk in response to the seizure of the police station. The demands of the pro-Russian activists in eastern Ukraine, however, keep shifting between outright secession and greater autonomy within Ukraine for the region to run its own affairs. But calls for unity with Russia now seem to predominate, heightening concerns in Washington and in European capitals that Moscow is orchestrating the disorder to create a pretext for an invasion. Tens of thousands of Russian troops have been massed for weeks on the Russian side of the border a few score miles from Donetsk.
“Here the reaction will be very tough,” Mr. Avakov wrote on his Facebook page. “Such is the difference between protesters and terrorists.” He added, “For terrorists with weapons, there is zero tolerance.” Unlike the unidentified armed men who seized Ukrainian government buildings and military facilities in Crimea — and later turned out to be Russian soldiers — in late February and early March as a prelude to Russia’s annexation of the peninsula, the gunmen behind Saturday’s attacks in Donetsk, the home region of the ousted Ukrainian president Viktor F. Yanukovych, appeared to be Russian-speaking local residents and not professional Russian troops.
Ukrainian officials said, as they have after other building seizures, that Russia was to blame for inciting unrest, an allegation the Kremlin has denied. Even so, Arsen Avakov, the acting interior minister in the shaky new Ukrainian government that came to power after Mr. Yanukvoych fled from Kiev on Feb. 21, immediately blamed Russia for the Donetsk attacks, saying that some of the weapons used in conducting the raids could be found only in Russian military hands. In a posting on his Facebook page, Mr. Avakov said the “Ukrainian government considers today’s facts as a manifestation of external aggression by the Russian Federation.”
The Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Deshchytsia, said in a statement that he had called his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, and demanded that Russia cease “provocative actions.” Mr. Avakov said that troops from his ministry and the Ukrainian military were “implementing the operational response plan.” He did not elaborate, and the loyalty of the Ukrainian security forces based in eastern regions is regarded as uncertain. Mr. Avakov promised last week to end the pro-Russia activists’ occupation of the regional administration building in Donetsk within 48 hours, either through negotiation or by force, but that deadline passed with protesters still in possession of the 11-story building.
Representatives of the government in Kiev are scheduled to take part in talks in Geneva on Thursday with Russia, the United States and the European Union over how to resolve the broader political crisis in Ukraine. Donbass News, a local media organization, reported on Saturday that the head of the regional branch of Ukraine’s state security service, Valery Ivanov, had been fired by the authorities in Kiev. It gave no reason. Opponents of the pro-Russia activists in Donetsk have accused the region’s police and security service of sympathizing with calls for secession and of failing to take a robust stand against separatist militants.
Russia had denounced the new Ukrainian government as illegitimate, calling it the product of an illegal coup that ousted a pro-Russian president, Viktor F. Yanukovych. The Kremlin has called for federalizing Ukraine with broad autonomy for its regional governments, which would, substantially weaken the central government in Kiev. Some of the men who stormed the Donetsk police building on Saturday, according to witnesses, wore the uniforms of the Berkut, a riot police squad that took a leading role in trying to keep Mr. Yanukovych in power during repeated street clashes with pro-Europe protesters in Kiev.
The push for federalization is seen as an acknowledgment that it is now virtually impossible for any pro-Russian candidate to win the presidential election on May 25, especially without the votes of more than one million pro-Russian voters in Crimea. The force, which was disbanded by the new government after Mr. Yanukovych fled, is viewed favorably by many Russian speakers in the east, but is generally loathed by the public in Kiev and in the Ukrainian-speaking west of the country as a hated symbol of the old leadership.
At a campaign stop in western Ukraine, the leading candidate in the race, the wealthy businessman Petro Poroshenko, criticized the government in Kiev for “inaction” in the face of continuing violence in the east. On Friday, a group of young men who said they were former members of Berkut appeared at the occupied regional administration building in Donetsk and said they wanted to volunteer for service to the pro-Russian cause.
Slovyansk is about 50 miles south of Donetsk. Pro-Russia demonstrations and actions have also occurred in Kharkiv, Luhansk and other cities. The presence of trained former riot police officers who may still be loyal to Mr. Yanukovych in the ranks of a movement opposed to the new central government stirred suspicions that the former president, who has taken refuge in Russia, may be trying to stage a comeback, with help from Moscow. Mr. Yanukovych has repeatedly insisted since he fled Kiev that he remains the country’s legitimate president and that he plans to return to Ukraine.
Video posted on Ukrainian news sites showed a group of about 20 heavily armed men in camouflage uniforms and masks outside the Slovyansk police station. They are seen using a winch attached to a van to pull a security grate from a ground-floor window, then smashing the window and entering the building.
When the men raised the Russian flag over the entrance, cheers, applause and chants of “Russia! Russia!” are heard.
The mayor of Slovyansk, Nelya Shtepa, told The Associated Press that she had spoken with the men who seized the police station and that they were local residents, not Russians.
“They told me, ‘We don’t have anything against you’ ” the agency quoted Ms. Shtepa as saying. Their goal, she said, was to be heard.