'Civil war' warning for Ukraine as troops, tanks push east
SEPARATIST SURGE. Pro-Russia supporters in Ukraine are being supported by Moscow, sparking threats of civil war. Photo by AFP
IZYUM, Ukraine - Ukraine is on the brink of "civil war", Russia warned Tuesday, April 15, after Kiev's leaders ordered troops and tanks towards a flashpoint eastern city to push back a separatist surge supported by Moscow.
The 20 tanks and armored personnel carriers were most forceful response yet by Kiev's Western-backed government to armed raids by pro-Kremlin militants and the occupation of state buildings in nearly 10 cities across Ukraine's rust belt.
Ukrainian forces set up a cement road barrier and began checking traffic leading to Slavyansk, an economically depressed industrial city of 100,000 that has been under effective control of separatist gunmen since Saturday.
"They must be warned that if they do not lay down their arms, they will be destroyed," Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) General Vasyl Krutov told a group of reporters tracking the sudden tank movements.
He insisted that the militants had been reinforced by several hundred soldiers from the Russian army's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).
Witnesses told AFP that at least two Ukrainian military helicopters landed in the nearby town of Kramatorsk with reinforcements for the offensive.
Kiev's response to the eastern insurgency prompted Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to warn that "Ukraine is on the brink of civil war – it's frightening".
He urged Ukraine's "de-facto" authorities – not recognized by Moscow – to avert "terrible turmoil".
The rapid turn of events on the ground were preceded by a telephone conversation late Monday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama on Ukraine that was described as "frank and direct".
The call, though, appeared to break no new ground.
The Kremlin chief continued to reject any links to Russian-speaking gunmen who have proclaimed the creation of their own independent republic, and who have called on Putin to send in the estimated 40,000 Russian troops now stationed along the border with Ukraine.
But the White House said Obama accused Moscow of supporting "armed pro-Russian separatists who threaten to undermine and destabilize the government of Ukraine".
The worst East-West confrontation since the Cold War was exacerbated on the weekend by a Russian warplane "buzzing" a US destroyer in the Black Sea, and a visit to Kiev by CIA chief John Brennan that was confirmed by the White House and slammed by Moscow.
European foreign ministers meanwhile held back on unleashing punishing economic sanctions against Russia in hopes that EU-US mediated talks on Thursday in Geneva between Moscow and Kiev could help de-escalate the situation.
Southeast 'on fire'
Kiev's untested interim leaders have struggled to meet the high-stakes challenge presented by the coordinated series of raids that began in the industrial hubs of Donetsk and Lugansk and have since spread to nearby coal mining towns and villages.
The breakaway move, backed by tough talk by Moscow, could potentially see their vast nation of 46 million break up along its historic Russian-Ukrainian cultural divide.
Moscow last month annexed the largely Russified region of Crimea after deploying military forces there and backing a hasty local referendum calling for the Black Sea peninsula to be absorbed into the Russian Federation.
But a forceful military response by Kiev could prompt a devastating counterstrike by Russian troops who are waiting to act on Putin's vow to "protect" Russian-speakers in the neighboring state.
Ukraine's acting President Oleksandr Turchynov told an agitated session of parliament that the country was facing an eastern enemy rather than domestic discontent.
"They want to set fire not only to the Donetsk region but to the entire south and east – from Kharkiv to the Odessa region," the acting president said.
'Russian colonel' in raid
Kiev's news programs have spent much of the past day replaying footage from an attack by militants on a police station in the town of Gorlivka in which men in gas masks pelted the building with Molotov cocktails before smashing its windows with rocks and bats.
One clip showed a green-uniformed man who identified himself as a Russian colonel telling the local police force that it now must obey his orders and must wear orange-and-black ribbons symbolizing Kremlin pride.
The Kremlin set nerves in Kiev further on edge on Monday by announcing that Putin had received "a lot" of requests from eastern Ukraine "to help, to intervene in some form". Some in Kiev saw that as a new effort to create a pretext for an invasion. - Rappler.com
