Several hundred pro-Russian demonstrators in the city of Donetsk, in
eastern Ukraine, declared they were forming an independent republic and
urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to send troops to the region as a
peacekeeping force, even though there was no imminent threat to peace.
The actions in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, which
included demands for a referendum on seceding from Ukraine and joining
Russia, seemed to be an effort by the activists to mimic some of the
events that preceded Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea.
However, there were no immediate indications that the Kremlin was
receptive to the pleas.
Pro-Russian activists wave communist flags during a rally in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
In a televised address, acting
Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said
Moscow was attempting to repeat "the Crimea scenario". He added that
"anti-terrorist measures" would be deployed against those who had taken
up arms.
US Secretary of State John Kerry told Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov in a phone call that Washington was watching
events in eastern Ukraine with great concern and any further moves by
Moscow to destabilise Ukraine would "incur further costs for Russia",
Even as the Kremlin denied any role in the protests,
government-controlled television stations in Russia gave live coverage
to the events in Donetsk on Monday April 07,2014, including the reading of a sort of
declaration of independence of the "sovereign state of the Donetsk
People's Republic" by a pro-Russian demonstrator inside the regional
administration building. Protesters occupied the building on Sunday April 06,2014
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