Pro-Russian forces parade detained European officers
Pro-Russian forces parade detained European officers
(about 3 hours later)
DONETSK, Ukraine — Pro-Russian forces on Sunday paraded detained European military officers before the media in a separatist stronghold in eastern Ukraine, just two days after they were captured and branded “spies.”
DONETSK, Ukraine — Seven European military officers and a translator being held hostage by pro-Russian separatists were paraded before the media Sunday, hours after another group of captives, three Ukrainian security service agents, were shown on Russian TV huddled in a room, blindfolded and bloody, without pants, their arms bound with packing tape.
The provocative display suggested that separatists have no intention of quickly releasing the men — who were in Ukraine as part of a military observer mission — despite international efforts to negotiate their freedom.
Later in the day, pro-Russia activists took control of the Ukraine state TV center in the capital of Donetsk without firing a shot. Members of the break-away pro-Russia movement called the Donetsk People’s Republic, aided by a fight club from Kharkiv, stormed the broadcast facility, saying they were sick of watching news aired through the prism of their enemies in Kiev and demanding an undiluted stream of Russian programing.
“We wish from the bottom of our hearts to go back to our nations as soon and as quickly as possible,” one of the observers, German Col. Axel Schneider, said at a news conference arranged by his captors.
The day’s events showed eastern Ukraine slipping further into kind of freelance chaos, with armed separatists openly defying state authority and local police either folding in sympathy or confessing they felt too intimidated to stop the pro-Russia groups.
Schneider said the men had “not been touched” and were in good health, but he gave no indication of when they might be freed.
There was no sign of the new government in Kiev pressing ahead with its “anti-terror” police and military operation to retake buildings and checkpoints occupied by pro-Russia militants.
Late Sunday, one of the monitors was released into the custody of international negotiators, according to a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, under whose auspices the monitors had been working. The freed monitor was from Sweden, and was likely freed because he has a serious pre-existing medical condition, the spokesman said.
As Moscow and Washington exchanged blame for failing to stem the escalation in tension, diplomats moved to try to free the hapless European military observers.
The news conference came just hours after the Ukrainian security service said that three of its officers were captured by pro-Russian militants in the city of Gorlovka. The men were in the city to investigate the recent torture and murder of a local politician.
Human rights observers say as many as 24 people — journalists, activists, police, politicians and monitors — are now being held captive in makeshift jails in Slovyansk in the heart of the Donetsk separatists’ territory.
The three captives were later shown on Russian television blindfolded and hunched over in a room at the government building in Slovyansk, the breakaway eastern city where OSCE observers are also being held.
There were also reports of vehicles being carjacked by separatists in support for their revolution and a list circulating at anti-Kiev checkpoints with the photographs of 18 journalists to be arrested on the spot.
The Ukrainian officers had been stripped of their pants and shoes and were bound with packing tape.
The Ukrainian security service said that three of its officers were captured by pro-Russian militants in the city of Gorlovka, where the agents were investigating the recent torture and murder of a local politician and a university student. Both men were supporters of a unified Ukraine. Their bodies were found dumped in the river near Slovyansk.
Militants in eastern Ukraine have turned to kidnapping as a favored tactic in recent days. The detentions have instantly raised the stakes in an already fraught drama pitting the Ukrainian government against motley bands of separatists who have overtaken city halls across the country’s eastern half.
Sunday's blows to security in eastern Ukraine came as Western nations prepare to impose fresh sanctions against Russia on Monday. White House deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken said on CBS's “Face the Nation” that the new measures would go after members of Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle, as well as "companies that they and other inner circle people control."
Although the standoff in Ukraine has for months been a proxy fight between Russia and the West, the imprisonment of military officers from NATO countries in a makeshift separatist jail threatens to draw the West more directly into the conflict.
The European Union is also expected to announce new measures Monday, though Europe has generally been more hesitant than Washington to punish Russia.
Russia said Saturday that it would do all it could to win the release of the detained men, who include a total of seven military monitors from Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and Denmark, as well as five Ukrainian military escorts. But as of Saturday night, leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in the city of Slovyansk remained adamant that they had no intention of freeing the officers, accusing them of espionage. Ukrainian officials said they feared that the men would be used as human shields.
In Slovyansk, the hard-core separatists staged a news conference to display their captives who were in Ukraine as part of a military observer mission operating under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The standoff raised fresh questions about the ability of any government — whether Ukrainian or Russian — to control events in a region where security is perilous and where shadowy militias hold growing sway.
“We wish from the bottom of our hearts to go back to our homes as soon and as quickly as possible,” one of the observers, Axel Schneider, a German army colonel, said at the news conference.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is monitoring events in Ukraine and trying to broker local peace deals, said it would keep its monitors out of Slovyansk until further notice and that it was carefully watching conditions in other cities.
The captives said they were not “prisoners” but “guests” of the de-facto mayor, but confessed they did not know when they might be released. Regardless, their captors said they might use the hostages for a possible prisoner exchange.
“It’s a very fluid security situation in a lot of these areas,” said Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for the OSCE monitoring mission here. “We’re definitely taking more precautions.”
Schneider said the men had “not been touched” and were in good health. “We are not fighters. We are diplomats in uniform. We came without weapons,” Schneider said.
Bociurkiw said that OSCE monitors visited Slovyansk last week and that they had met with the pro-Russian activists who took over the city’s government buildings this month. “It was tense, but there was an understanding achieved,” Bociurkiw said.
The separatists, saying they found the observers carrying maps with checkpoints marked, were “NATO spies.”
The detention of the monitors Friday, Bociurkiw said, was “entirely unexpected.”
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the parading of the military officers before the media was "repulsive" and "a breach of all the rules." He appealed to Russia to pressure the separatists to free the monitors, who were arrested alongside five Ukrainian military officers and a driver.
The detained men are military officers who also were here under OSCE auspices, but under a separate mission from the civilian observers.
Late Sunday, one of the monitors was released into the custody of international negotiators, according to Michael Bociurkiw, an OSCE spokesman. The freed monitor was from Sweden, and was likely released because he has a serious preexisting medical condition, the spokesman said.
OSCE dispatched a team to eastern Ukraine on Saturday and was leading negotiations aimed at securing the monitors’ release, according to officials from OSCE and from Germany, which led the mission.
Despite increasingly hostile moves by the separatists, their support in southeastern Ukraine is thin. The government buildings they occupy in towns and cities across the region are often defended by no more than a few dozen protesters, and they have had trouble drawing large crowds to the street.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss the situation Saturday, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement. Steinmeier’s spokeswoman declined to discuss the call.
Polls suggest that most people in the region, while favoring greater autonomy, do not want to be absorbed by Russia.
Lavrov also spoke Saturday with U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Kerry urged Lavrov to help free the monitors, while Lavrov called on Kerry to force Kiev to halt its military operations against antigovernment forces in southeastern Ukraine.
Only a few hundred demonstrators bothered to turn out for a rally in Donetsk's Lenin Square on Sunday, despite nearly ideal spring weather and the promise of an appearance by the mysterious "people's governor."
Reasons for visit unclear
The crowd – waiving Russian and Donetsk People's Republic flags — offered only tepid applause as speaker after speaker railed against the "fascist government in Kiev."
The standoff comes at a critical time in Western decision-making over how hard to punish Russia for its meddling in Ukraine. In a statement released Saturday morning, the Group of Seven announced that it would impose new sanctions against Moscow, and officials indicated that they could come as early as Monday.
"I want to strangle a fascist with my bare hands," shouted a woman who took the stage beneath a massive black stone statue of Lenin.
Germany, which has extensive economic ties to Russia, has led the call in the West for restraint in dealings with Moscow. But the detention of the officers, including four Germans, in Slovyansk could alter that balance.
Another speaker chided the leaders of the Donetsk People's Republic for not being more aggressive in attacking the Ukrainian authorities and achieving autonomy. The power to his microphone was cut off mid-sentence, and men wearing camouflage uniforms and balaclavas escorted him from the stage.
It was not clear why the monitors, who were in military uniform but unarmed, decided to try to enter Slovyansk on Friday. The city, which has been known for weeks as a hotbed of separatist sentiment, was especially tense after a deadly Ukrainian military assault on several separatist checkpoints just a day earlier.
The self-appointed “people’s governor” Denis Pushilin, told the crowd, his organization planed to stage a referendum on May 11 with a single question: "Do you recognize the creation of the Donetsk People's Republic?"
OSCE officials said they were not aware of the reason for the visit, and Germany declined to comment.
If they answer is “yes,” Pushilin said they will decide whether to remain autonomous or join a neighboring state — which could only be Russia, which annexed the former Ukrainian territory of Crimea last month.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Saturday that it was “taking all measures possible to resolve the situation.” But it added that the Ukrainian authorities “should have cleared the inspectors’ presence, activity and security in the regions . . . where a military operation has been launched against the people of their own country.”
“I learned a lot from my Russian friends on how to be a patriot,” Pushilin said.
The self-appointed “people’s mayor” of Slovyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomariov, told Russian news media that his men had detained the monitors on suspicion of spying, and that they had subsequently confiscated military maps that he said prove the accusation. The monitors were traveling on a bus that had been stopped at a checkpoint on the way into the city.
Boris Litvinov, who is organizing the referendum, said the ballots had already gone to the printers. But he conceded the election faced logistic, political and legal hurdles. Only two cities are working closely with the group — “and half of Kramatorsk,” he said.
In an appearance on Russian television, Ponomariov showed off the officers’ military ID tags, badges and medals. “They were soldiers on our territory without our permission,” he said. “Of course they are prisoners.”
The interim governor of Donesk, Serhiy Taruta, the billionaire steel magnate appointed to the job by the new government in Kiev, said it would be impossible for the pro-Russia activists to pull off a full, fair referendum.
He suggested that the men could be exchanged for pro-Russia activists being held by Ukraine.
"We have 2.7 million voters in the region, and 5,000 polling districts, for heaven's sake,” Taruta said in an interview. “I can call myself the pope. Who cares? That doesn’t make it real or transparent."
A spokeswoman for Ponomariov, Stella Khorosheva, said the detainees were being treated well.
As separatists stormed the TV station, pro-unity Ukrainians gathered at a Donetsk cultural center to hear from dissident Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
“We give them food and water,” said Khorosheva, who expressed frustration that the monitors were receiving so much attention from the Ukrainian news media “when they ignore those taken captive by illegal junta in Kiev.”
The former oil tycoon was freed from a Russian jail in December after 10 years in prison on charges that were widely seen as political payback by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The pro-Russia forces argue that the Ukrainian government, which came to power in February after massive street protests that ousted the president, is illegitimate. They have called for a referendum early next month that would allow eastern Ukraine substantial autonomy from Kiev.
He has since been outspoken in his criticism of the Russian leader, and on Sunday he showed common cause with Ukrainians who oppose any interference from Moscow. Ukrainians, he said, should choose to stay in Ukraine because here "you live in a democracy, more or less. But Russia is an authoritarian regime that is transforming into a totalitarian regime.”
Tension on border
Khodorkovsky urged the Ukrainian audience -- which included prominent Donetsk civic leaders — to demonstrate for Putin the cost of an invasion.
Ukrainian authorities and Western governments have accused Russia of covertly instigating the unrest in eastern Ukraine to destabilize the country, and possibly to justify an invasion. Tens of thousands of Russian troops are massed on the Ukrainian border, and they have engaged in increasingly aggressive maneuvers in recent days.
"If Putin and Russian decision-makers understand that this region is not like Crimea, and that people here will resist an invasion, they won't invade," he said to warm applause. "It's up to you to send a strong signal that you'll fight for your land and that you won't give up. Once you make that decision, you should be prepared to defend it with your blood."
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters Saturday that Russian military aircraft “crossed and violated” Ukrainian airspace seven times overnight and that the incursions were designed “to provoke Ukraine to start a war.”
Alex Ryabchyn contributed to this report.
Russia has said it is simply conducting drills and has no intention of invading Ukraine, but there were signs along the border with Russia on Saturday that Ukraine was in a state of heightened alert. Military helicopters passed overhead, and at the lonely frontier crossing at Marynivka, the Ukrainian military erected a dozen large concrete anti-tank blocks.
Vehicles continued to move between the countries, though the traffic was light.
At a nearby Ukrainian Border Guard garrison, troops defended the locked entrance and scanned the rutted two-lane farm road with binoculars.
“But nobody has seen any Russians,” said the maintenance manager at a hilltop war memorial called Savur-Mohyla, which commemorates the Red Army’s battle against German forces in 1943.
The worker, who was hoeing weeds and said he had lived in a nearby village all of his life, declined to give his name because he works for the state.
He said that in his village, most residents would rather be part of Russia, because they think their wages and pensions would improve. Polls show that most Ukrainians — even those in the heavily Russian-speaking east — disagree and would rather stay in Ukraine. The surveys also show strong resistance to the idea of a Russian invasion.
But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. The worker pointed at the country road that passed through the farms and orchards from Russia, just a few miles away.
“A Russian column traveling 30 mph with some helicopter support could be in Slovyansk in three hours,” he said. “There's really no Ukraine army here to stop them if they want to come.”
Booth reported from Marynivka. Alex Ryabchyn in Marynivka and Michael Birnbaum in Moscow contributed to this report.
