Ukraine - western media version

Pro-Russian militias fill the vacuum as Kiev's control in eastern Ukraine slips

As 'Cossacks' appear in Slavyansk from Crimea, some believe Vladimir Putin is raising tensions wreck the presidential elections

the Guardian,

15 April, 2013

On the steps of Slavyansk's occupied town hall a group of armed men in fatigues posed happily for photos. They were equipped with Kalashnikovs – military-issue AK-74s – commando knives, flak jackets and walkie-talkies. Round the back, close to the main square with its Lenin statue, was a green military truck. It bore no insignia.

Who exactly were they? "We're Cossacks," one of the group explained. "It doesn't matter where we are from." He declined to give his name. Instead, he offered a quick history lesson, stretching back a thousand years, to when Slavic tribes banded together to form Kievan Rus – the dynasty that eventually flourished into modern-day Ukraine and its big neighbour Russia.

"We don't want Ukraine. Ukraine doesn't exist for us. There are no people called Ukrainians," he declared. "There are just Slav people who used to be in Kievan Rus, before Jews like Trotsky divided us. We should all be together again." The man – a middle-aged commando with a bushy beard – said he had come to Slavyansk "to help". He didn't intend to kill anybody, he said. Producing a long knife, he said: "I can't kill my brother Slavs."

The mysterious "Cossacks" arrived in Slavyansk, 40 miles (65km) north of Donetsk, on Saturday. Similar "Cossacks" popped up in Crimea too, soon after Russia invaded and then annexed the territory. According to Kiev's hapless interim government, Russia is behind the apparently co-ordinated takeover by masked men in military uniforms of government buildings all across eastern Ukraine. The US and EU agree. Moscow denies the charge. It says that the west blames it for everything.

One of the "Cossacks", however, admitted on Monday that he had just arrived from Crimea, where he spent a month "helping" with Russia's takeover there. How had he managed to travel from Russian-controlled territory to the east of the country? And from where did he get his Kalashnikov? He declined to answer but claimed the weapon had come from a seized police station, although Ukraine's police use different, smaller ones.

According to Igor Todorov, a professor of politics at Donetsk University, Vladimir Putin's goal is simple: to ramp up tensions ahead of Ukraine's presidential election next month, with a view to wrecking them.

Over the past few days pro-Russian activists have seized the city administration in almost a dozen places. They are now camped out in a succession of late Soviet municipal buildings. On Monday an angry crowd armed with sticks hijacked the police HQ in the city of Horlivka, badly beating a policeman and smashing in the upper windows. Occupations continue in Donetsk, and a string of other Russophone eastern towns in the Donbass region.

With the east slipping vertiginously out of its grip, Ukraine's western-backed government has promised a tough response. The defence minister, Arsen Avakov, has announced an "anti-terrorist" operation. One security officer was killed on Sunday and another injured after a shootout with separatists in Slavyansk, Avakov claimed. A deadline for the "terrorists" to hand over their weapons came and went on Monday.

On the road between Donetsk and Slavyansk, however, there were no signs of Ukraine's elusive army. Poplars and colourful apricot trees with white blossom line the highway; the route passes crumbling collective farms and old ladies selling local produce including jars of birch juice and saplings. If Kiev is preparing to send tanks in to deal with the separatists, they are well hidden.

With Ukraine's military either invisible or non-existent, pro-Russian militia have filled the vacuum. They have set up roadblocks heaped with black tyres. Masked youths, mostly armed with sticks, stop and check cars. Closer to Slavyansk the barricades get bigger. The route and main checkpoint lead over a bridge. Halfway across is an extraordinary sight: a group of women, mostly elderly, stand in a line holding gold-framed icons. They bow and pray – volunteer human shields.

The dilemma for the authorities in Kiev is that these anti-Kiev militias – whether spontaneous or set in motion by Moscow, like so many spinning tops – enjoy substantial local support. Many here are convinced that Ukraine's new rulers are "fascists", the accusation from the Kremlin. Economic conditions, meanwhile, are dire. The prevailing uncertainty following months of upheaval in Kiev and revolution means that tourists are no longer coming to Slavyansk. It boasts sanatoria, a pine forest and a famous monastery, all eclipsed by the threat of war.

Inside the city pro-Russian activists have taken over Slavyansk's police building, as well as the Cossack-occupied administration. Teenagers holding riot shields, their faces hidden by bandanas, perch on top of a precarious tyre wall. A flag proclaims: "People's Republic of Donetsk". Another says: "Referendum". Practically all here are in favour of a vote that would grant the east greater autonomy. Ukraine's prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has already offered this, but nobody appears to be listening to him.

One protester, Nina, said her ceramics business was close to collapse because Russians were too scared to visit Ukraine. Another, Larissa, said Slavyansk – population 136,000 – was broke and in despair. "We don't have jobs. We don't have money. I don't care if they shoot us," she said defiantly. She added: "Nobody has come to talk to us. We are not bandits. We are not separatists. We just want a referendum."

Most shops in Slavyansk were shut on Monday. The schools were closed too. But some people ventured out into the main square, sitting on benches in the spring sunshine. A few posed with the colourful "Cossacks" outside the town hall. Next to their military lorry was a pleasant garden containing a war memorial. The monument – a bell and a pair of wooden Kalashnikovs – was dedicated to the 11 men from Slavyansk who perished in the 1980s during the Soviet Afghan war.

The mood in eastern Ukraine is dangerously febrile. But the only actual war taking place at the moment appears to be a propaganda one. One excitable Ukrainian news website claimed on Monday that 100 separatists had seized the police HQ in Krasniy Liman, a small rustic town just north of Slavyansk. This turned out to be untrue. At the scene two policeman stood outside; they said that a group of activists had turned up earlier in the week but went away after a friendly chat. Nearby, five members of the town's tiny militia sat around a small brazier.

"We've struck a deal with the police. We both guard the building at night," Yuri Saborkin, 43 – a former soldier, dressed in fatigues – explained. Ukraine's SBU internal security division confiscated weapons from the police station over the weekend, so nobody had any arms. He said he didn't like the Ukrainian media. "It's complete lies. We're not bad guys," he said.

In this frenzied informational conflict it is clear which side is winning: it is not the US.

On the road out of town pro-Russian agitators had set up a roadblock on the edge of a pine forest. Their camp looked inviting. It was a sylvan scene – a tent, a new wooden bench, a pile of neatly stacked logs, and the smell of dinner cooking on a fire.

Someone had drawn a caricature of an American in a top hat with a dollar sign on it. On the American was the word: "Puppeteer". His fingers were pulling strings with a series of letters. They read: "Our government".

Separatists tighten grip on east Ukraine, EU agrees more sanctions on Moscow

Armed pro-Russian separatists seized more buildings in eastern Ukraine on Monday, expanding their control after the government failed to follow through on threatened military crackdown leaving Moscow's partisans essentially unopposed.

Reuters ,

15 April, 2013

European foreign ministers agreed to widen sanctions against Moscow and the White House said Washington was seeking ways to impose more "costs" on Russia, for what Kiev and its Western friends call a Russian plot to dismember Ukraine.

Rebels in the town of Slaviansk, where the authorities failed to follow through with their announced "anti-terrorist" operation, called for Russian President Vladimir Putin's help.

Ukraine's interim president Oleksander Turchinov said on Monday the offensive against the rebels would still go ahead. But in a sign of discord behind the scenes in Kiev, he sacked the state security chief in charge of the operation.

In one of the first signs of a military deployment by Kiev's forces, a Ukrainian column of two tanks and more than 20 armored personnel carriers packed with paratroops was seen about 70 km (50 miles) northwest of Slaviansk on Monday evening, according to video journalist Maksim Dondyuk who filmed them.

In Donetsk, rebels holed up in the administrative headquarters of a province that is home to 10 percent of Ukraine's population said they planned to seize control of infrastructure and the levers of state power. They have declared an independent "People's Republic of Donetsk" and sought Putin's protection if they are attacked.

Rebels have also seized buildings in around 10 other towns and cities across other eastern provinces which form the heartland of Ukraine's heavy industry.

In a bid to undercut the rebels' demands, Turchinov held out the prospect of a countrywide referendum on the future shape of the Ukrainian state. Pro-Russian secessionists want separate referendums in their regions, which Kiev says is illegal.

The uprising in eastern Ukraine began eight days ago but has accelerated sharply in the past 48 hours, with separatists seizing ever more buildings, including arsenals filled with weapons. They have met little opposition.

Kiev says the separatists are organized by Moscow, seeking to repeat the seizure of the Crimea region, which Moscow occupied and annexed last month.

Russia says the armed men are all locals acting on their own, but Western officials say the uprising is too well-coordinated to be entirely spontaneous, and bears too many similarities to the Russian operation in Crimea.

"I don't think denials of Russian involvement have a shred of credibility," British Foreign Minister William Hague said, before a meeting with EU counterparts.

Hague later announced that the ministers had agreed to expand a list of Russians barred from travelling or doing business in the EU. Work would begin to come up with new names for the sanctions list, Hague said.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barak Obama would speak to Putin by phone later on Monday. Washington is also planning to expand its sanctions list. Russia has so far shrugged off targeted sanctions.

Moscow says it has the right to intervene to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine, and has portrayed the people of the east as under threat from gangs of Ukrainian-speaking "fascists". NATO says Russia has tens of thousands of troops massed on the frontier, able to capture eastern Ukraine within days.

ULTIMATUM EXPIRES

Turchinov had threatened to launch a military crackdown by 9 a.m., but as the deadline expired there was no sign of any action in Slaviansk. A rebel leader, in an appeal issued through journalists, asked Putin to "help us as much as you can".

The Kremlin said the Russian president was listening.

"Unfortunately, there's a great many such appeals coming from the Eastern Ukrainian regions addressed directly to Putin to intervene in this or that form," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "The president is watching the developments in Eastern Ukraine with great concern."

Also in Slaviansk, about 150 km (90 miles) from the Russian border, a small airfield which was occupied by Ukrainian air force planes on Sunday was empty on Monday and pro-separatist forces said they were now in control of it.

Eastern Ukraine seems to be rapidly spinning out of the control of the central government. The governor of Donetsk, a multi-millionaire appointed by Kiev, has not been seen since April 11. A man calling himself Donetsk's new police chief has appeared wearing the orange and black separatist ribbon.

The Ukrainian defense ministry acknowledged that it has had difficulty mobilizing the armed forces in the east, where some units have been blockaded in by rebellious locals.

"On some occasions we have lost the information war and there have been blockades of our units. People don't understand why they are coming," said acting Defence Minister Mykhailo Koval. He said 26 members of a reconnaissance unit had been blockaded for the past day and a half in Slaviansk.

"Negotiations are under way to free them to allow them to link up with our main force."

In the town of Horlivka about 100 pro-Russian separatists attacked the police headquarters on Monday. Video footage on Ukrainian television showed an ambulance treating people apparently injured in the attack.

Russia's foreign ministry called Turchinov's planned military operation a "criminal order" and said the West should bring its allies in Ukraine's government under control.

Turchinov's website said he told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon he would welcome U.N. peacekeepers in Ukraine. The proposal was rhetorical as no such deployment has been proposed or could ever take place over Russia's Security Council veto.

The Ukraine crisis has led to the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. Washington said a Russian fighter aircraft had made 12 low altitude passes over a U.S. warship in the Black Sea over the weekend, which it called a "provocative and unprofessional Russian action".

Outside the Slaviansk city council offices stood a group of about 12 armed men in matching camouflage fatigues with black masks, one of whom was holding a Russian flag.

They said they were Cossacks - paramilitary fighters descended from Tsarist-era patrolmen - but did not say where from. One told Reuters: "The borders between Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are artificial and we are here to take them away."

In Donetsk, leaders of the self-declared "People's Republic" held a strategy meeting to plan their seizure of control of the rest of the region's state functions.

"Everything from city cleaning to the sewage system, the airport, railway stations, military... should be under your control," one leader, Vladimir Makovich, told about two dozen other senior separatists in a dark room on the top floor of the 11-storey government headquarters.

Over the past week, the rebels have turned the massive Soviet-era building into a bastion for urban warfare. Barricades crisscross the corridors and steel plates are welded to windows.

"We are ready for storming at any time. No matter what happens, this building will not be given up," said Alexander Zakharchenko, 38, commander of a paramilitary unit made up of members of a martial arts club.

Turchinov's announcement he was sending in the army was the first time the military has been activated in six months of internal disorder. The plan implies a lack of confidence in the 30,000-strong interior ministry troops, partly discredited by identification with ousted president Viktor Yanukovich.

Russian stocks and the ruble fell sharply on Monday, reflecting fears of further Russian military intervention in Ukraine and more western sanctions against Moscow.

Kiev is also facing economic disarray. The central bank nearly doubled its overnight interest rate to 14.50 percent from 7.50 percent. Ukraine's hryvnia currency has lost 38 percent of its value against the dollar this year.

Moscow has largely brushed off sanctions so far, which the United States and Europe have explicitly designed to target only a limited number of officials and avert wider economic harm.