Armoured vehicles with Russian flags appear in east Ukraine
Moscow/Slavyansk: The escalation of conflict in Ukraine has brought the country to the verge of civil war, Kremlin said in a statement on Wednesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin during a telephonic conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on late Tuesday night warned of the possibility of civil war, the Kremlin press service said Wednesday.
The two leaders “exchanged opinions about the anti-constitutional course of the incumbent Kiev authorities towards the suppression by force of popular protests in southeastern Ukraine,” the Kremlin statement said.
Putin and Merkel accentuated the importance of the four-party negotiations between Russia, the EU, the US and Ukraine scheduled for Thursday, expressing the hope that the Geneva meeting could send a “strong message” to encourage events to take a peaceful route, Xinhua reported.
Putin also highlighted the importance of solving the problems of Ukraine’s economic stabilisation and the provision of deliveries and transit of Russian natural gas to Europe.
A new wave of unrest erupted in eastern Ukraine over the weekend, as pro-Russia activists seized several government buildings in the cities of Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkov, demanding a referendum on autonomy and closer ties with Russia.
Ukraine accused Russia of being behind the unrest, but Moscow has firmly denied any involvement in Ukraine’s domestic affairs.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday said Russia does not interfere in Ukraine’s internal affairs.
Meanwhile, armoured vehicles bearing Russian flags rolled through a flashpoint town in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the country was on the brink of civil war.
Tensions continued to mount ahead of high-level diplomatic talks on the Ukraine crisis in Geneva tomorrow after Kiev sent in troops to oust pro-Moscow separatists from the east.
An AFP reporter in the town of Slavyansk saw at least six APCs, some flying Russian flags, carrying dozens of armed men through the town. Russian media said Ukrainian troops in the vehicles had switched sides to join the separatists but the Ukrainian army told AFP that it had no reports that any of its equipment had been seized.
Elsewhere, pro-Russian gunmen stormed the mayor’s office in the regional capital of Donetsk, according to an AFP reporter at the scene. As the situation on the ground appeared to escalate, the authorities in Kiev ratcheted up the verbal attack on Russia. (Agencies)