Pro-Russians proclaim independence for Ukraine’s Donetsk

DONETSK, Ukraine: Ukraine faced a fresh secessionist crisis Monday as pro-Kremlin militants occupying the Donetsk government seat proclaimed independence from Kiev and vowed to hold a referendum on joining Russia.
The declaration and accompanying appeal for Russian military help put the nation of 46 million people in danger of disintegration and intensified pressure on Western powers to act.
The ex-Soviet nation on the EU’s eastern frontier continues to be watched by tens of thousands of Russian troops who had already annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in response to last month’s ouster in Kiev of a Moscow-backed regime.
Several heavily Russified eastern regions now want referendums on joining Russia when Ukraine holds snap presidential polls on May 25.
The two frontrunners in that election both want to tie the vast country’s future to Europe and break its historic dependence on its eastern neighbor.
The political pressure on Kiev’s embattled leaders reached boiling point on Sunday when thousands of activists chanting “Russia!” seized administration buildings in Kharkiv and Donetsk as well as the security service headquarters in the eastern region of Lugansk.
The Donetsk activists went one step further on Monday by proclaiming the creation of a sovereign “people’s republic” in the region of about five million people.
Footage posted on YouTube showed one bearded Russian speaker telling the packed assembly from a podium: “Seeking to create a popular, legitimate, sovereign state, I proclaim the creation of the sovereign state of the People’s Republic of Donetsk.”
The activists later agreed to join the Russian Federation in a move similar to the one taken by Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula last month.
The Interfax news agency reported that the self-proclaimed leaders had also vowed to hold a regional sovereignty referendum no later than May 11.
More footage aired on Ukraine’s Channel 5 television showed an unidentified speaker asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to send a “peacekeeping contingent of the Russian army” to Donetsk to help the region stand up to Kiev’s rule.
Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov accused Russian “special services” of being behind the uprising and ordered extra security personnel to the restless region.
“These actions are meant to destabilize the country, overthrow the Ukrainian government, torpedo the elections and tear our country to pieces,” Turchynov said in a nationally televised address.
The Russian foreign ministry responded with a toughly worded statement telling Kiev to “stop pointing the finger at Russia, blaming it for all the problems in today’s Ukraine.”