US Secretary of State John Kerry squarely blamed Russian agents for separatist unrest in eastern Ukraine, saying Moscow could be trying to lay the groundwork for military action like in Crimea. Photo: Larry Downing/ReutersUS Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russian agents and special forces yesterday of stirring separatist unrest in eastern Ukraine, saying Moscow could be trying to prepare for military action as it had in Crimea.
Armed pro-Moscow protesters were still occupying Ukrainian government buildings in two cities in the largely Russian-speaking east yesterday, although police ended a third occupation in a lightning night-time operation.
Ukraine’s security service said separatists occupying the security headquarters in Luhansk had planted bombs in the building and were holding as many as 60 hostages.
Activists in the building denied they had explosives or hostages, but said they had seized an armoury full of automatic rifles.
The Ukraine government says the occupations that began on Sunday are part of a Russian-led plan to dismember the country. Kerry said he feared Moscow might repeat its Crimean operation.
“It is clear that Russian special forces and agents have been the catalyst behind the chaos of the past 24 hours,” he said in Washington, and this “could potentially be a contrived pretext for military intervention just as we saw in Crimea”.
Moscow annexed the Black Sea peninsula last month after a referendum staged when Russian troops were already in control.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed Western accusations that Moscow was destabilising Ukraine, saying the situation could improve only if Kiev took into account the interests of Russian-speaking regions.
Shots were fired, a grenade thrown and 70 people detained as Ukrainian officers ended the occupation in the city of Kharkiv during an 18 minute “anti-terrorism” action, the interior ministry said.
But elsewhere in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, activists armed with Kalashnikov rifles and protected by barbed wire barricades vowed there was no going back on their demand – a vote on returning to Moscow rule.
In the city of Luhansk, a man dressed in camouflage told a crowd outside the occupied state security building: “We want a referendum on the status of Luhansk and we want Russian returned as an official language.”
The Kremlin’s standoff with the West has knocked investors’ confidence in the Russian economy, and the International Monetary Fund yesterday cut its forecast of growth this year to 1.3 per cent, less than half the three per cent it had originally projected.
Britain expressed fears that Russia wanted to disrupt the run-up to presidential elections next month in Ukraine, which has been ruled by an interim government since the overthrow of Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovych in February.
Ukraine, which was controlled by Moscow until the Soviet Union collapsed more than two decades ago, has been in turmoil since late last year when Yanukovych rejected closer relations with the European Union and tilted the country back towards Russia.
That provoked mass protests in which more than 100 people were killed by police and which drove Yanukovych from office, leading to Kiev’s loss of control in Crimea.
In Kiev, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov partly pinned responsibility for the Kharkiv occupation on Russian President Vladimir Putin. “All this was inspired and financed by the Putin-Yanukovych group,” he said. An aide said police went in when the protesters failed to give themselves up and surrender their arms. Officers did not open fire, despite shooting and the grenade attack from the other side, he said. One police officer was badly wounded and some others less seriously hurt.