Putin calls for Ukraine to back off

Russian demands pullback of all of Kiev’s troops from east

Pro-Russian activists clash with police Thursday at the regional administration building in Donetsk, Ukraine. As more troubles roiled the east, Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded Ukraine pull its troops from the region.

Pro-Russian activists clash with police Thursday at the regional administration building in Donetsk, Ukraine. As more troubles roiled the east, Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded Ukraine pull its troops from the region.

Friday, May 2, 2014

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded Thursday that the Ukrainian government withdraw its troops from the troubled eastern part of the country, where pro-Russian separatists have been gaining ground.

Putin made the demand in a conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who called the Russian leader Thursday about the deteriorating security situation in eastern Ukraine. She reached out to Putin a day after Ukraine’s acting president said he had lost control of that portion of his country.

Merkel, who will meet with President Barack Obama today in Washington, pressed Putin to help secure the release of seven international observers - four of them German - who have been taken hostage by separatist forces in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk, her spokesman said Thursday.

Putin told her “it was imperative today to withdraw all military units from the southeastern regions” of Ukraine, and he called for a “broad national dialogue” about changes to Ukraine’s Constitution, the Kremlin said.

photo

AP

Separatists storm the regional police station in the Donetsk region of Ukraine on Thursday, demanding that pro-Russian activists be freed across eastern Ukraine.

But inside Ukraine, any hope of dialogue appeared to be slipping ever further away.

An emergency siren sounded in Slovyansk, which is at the center of the pro-Russian insurgency, early today.

Vyacheslav Ponomarev, the insurgency-appointed mayor of Slovyansk, said self-defense forces had shot down two helicopters and taken one pilot captive. He said no Ukrainian troops could be seen in the city. Details could not be independently confirmed.

An APTN cameraman reported seeing black plumes of smoke on the edge of the city.

On Thursday, protesters opposed to the Ukrainian government in Kiev stormed the general prosecutor’s office in the eastern Ukrainian regional capital of Donetsk a day after they had taken over the City Council building there.

Crowds of separatists massed in front of Donetsk’s police station Thursday, demanding that all pro-Russian activists be freed across eastern Ukraine.

They waved Russian flags - and at least one banner depicting World War II-era Soviet leader Josef Stalin and the communist hammer and sickle symbol - and played Soviet patriotic songs. Then they turned their attention to the nearby state prosecutor’s office, where dozens of black-clad riot police with metal shields stood in front of the entrance.

A confrontation quickly ensued, as the riot police attempted to push the crowd away from the entrance with tear gas. The protesters, chanting “fascists,” threw rocks, breaking windows in the office building and demanding that the prosecutor come out. Men in black ski masks quickly pushed the riot police away from the entrance and forced them to surrender, less than an hour after the pro-Russian protesters had arrived.

If Ukraine’s interim government carries out military operations in the eastern part of the country, it “could lead to disastrous consequences,” the Russian Foreign Ministry warned Thursday.

“We are calling on Kiev, as well as the U.S. and the E.U. indulging it … not to commit criminal mistakes and to soberly assess the gravity of possible consequences of using force against the Ukrainian people,” the ministry said in a statement.

Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov on Wednesday said that the Ukrainian government’s goal now is to prevent the agitation from spreading to other areas, and he called for the creation of special regional police forces so that a presidential election could take place May 25 as scheduled.

Merkel’s trip to Washington will focus in large part on the security situation in eastern Ukraine in particular and in eastern Europe more generally. NATO has sent troops and fighter jets to patrol the borders of Poland and the Baltic states. And the United States and Europe have made coordinated announcements of sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Ukraine’s autonomous Crimea region in March and the continuing violence in eastern Ukraine.

Pro-Russian gunmen extended their control over that part of the country Wednesday without encountering resistance. Turchynov admitted that police and security forces were either “helpless” to prevent the unrest or were actively colluding with separatist rebels. But he warned that the threat of a Russian invasion was real and said his country’s armed forces have been placed on full alert.

Turchynov spoke Wednesday in Kiev as the insurgency consolidated its control of the Donetsk region and extended its influence into the neighboring region of Luhansk. Both regions border Russia.

Insurgents armed with automatic weapons took control Wednesday of the city council buildings in the cities of Horlivka in Donetsk and Alchevsk in Luhansk. The previous day, another mob seized control of the regional government headquarters in the city of Luhansk.

Many of the insurgents hope to follow Crimea’s break from Ukraine in March and subsequent annexation by Russia.

Front Section, Pages 12 on 05/02/2014