HORLIVKA, Ukraine — Pro-Russian gunmen extended their control over eastern Ukraineon Wednesday, as the country’s acting president admitted that police and security forces were either helpless to prevent the unrest or were actively colluding with the separatist rebels.
Oleksandr Turchynov said the Ukrainian government’s goal now was to prevent the agitation from spreading to other territories, and he called for the creation of special regional police forces so that a presidential election could take place on May 25 as scheduled. But he warned that the threat of a Russian invasion was very real and said his country’s armed forces have been placed on full alert.
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Pro-Russia activists stormed several official buildings in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk and fired on police headquarters.
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Turchynov spoke in the capital, Kiev, hours after insurgents wielding automatic weapons took control of the city council building in the eastern city of Horlivka in the Donetsk region. The previous day,another mob seized control of the regional government headquarters in the city of Luhansk, capital of the neighboring region of the same name, smashing windows as they forced their way in.
In Horlivka, Anatoly Starostin, the commander of separatist forces, said they took control of a police station Tuesday evening without any problems, and he described the police there as “corrupt, weak and unprofessional.” The separatists then took over city hall Wednesday with the agreement of the local mayor, who supported their cause and would remain in his post, he said. A flag of the self-styled “Donetsk People’s Republic” flew over the building Wednesday.
“All I want is to be a citizen of Russia, and for this part of Ukraine to be part of Russia,” Starostin, 42, said in an interview in the lobby of city hall. “My commanders gave me a task to control the city.”
Starostin said he came from the city of Slovyansk, which has been under separatist control for about two weeks, with orders to recruit a “self-defense force” from among the people of Horlivka.
The militia controlling city hall wore masks and carried automatic rifles; Starostin wore a new camouflage uniform without any insignia, and no mask. “Russian soldiers do not go to war with masks on their faces,” he said, indicating that although he is not a Russian soldier now, he aspires to be one eventually.
In Kiev, Turchnyov, the acting president, told a meeting of regional governors that local security forces were unable to protect citizens.
“I will be frank: Today, security forces are unable to quickly take the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions under control,” Turchynov said, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news service. “The security bodies . . . are unable to carry out their duties of protecting citizens. They are helpless in those matters. Moreover, some of those units are either helping or cooperating with terrorist organizations.”
Turchynov instructed the governors to try to prevent the threat from spreading to other regions in the central and southern parts of the country.
“Mercenaries and special units that are active on Ukrainian territory have been tasked with attacking those regions,” Turchynov was quoted as saying by Interfax. “That is why I am stressing: our task is to stop the spread of the terrorist threat first of all in the Kharkiv and Odessa regions,”
Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops near its border with Ukraine, although it says it has no plans to invade. But Ukraine’s acting president told the regional governors that those assurances could not be trusted.
“I once again return to the real danger of the Russian Federation beginning a land war against Ukraine,” he said. “Our armed forces have been put on full military readiness.”
The insurgents now control buildings in about a dozen cities in eastern Ukraine as they press demands for broader regional rights as well as greater ties or outright annexation by Russia. The militiamen are holding some activists and journalists hostage, including a group of observers from a European security organization.
In Luhansk, one of the largest cities in eastern Ukraine, gunmen in camouflage uniforms maintained control of several government offices they seized Tuesday.
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