Ukraine's Interior
Ministry said Ukrainian forces killed the five militants during
operations to take down pro-Russian activists' roadblocks around the
city of Slavyansk.
The Russian response was quick to come.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin said that "if the Kiev regime has started to use the army
against the population inside the country, it, beyond any doubt, is a
very serious crime."
It would "have
consequences" for those making the decisions, and for relations between
the two governments, Putin said at a media forum Thursday, according to
state TV channel Russia 24.
Tensions escalate in eastern Ukraine
Armored vehicles enter Slavyansk
Pro-Kiev politician found dead in Ukraine
Photos: Crisis in Ukraine
Shortly afterward,
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia would conduct
military drills in response to the operation in southeastern Ukraine,
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said.
"We are forced to react
to such a development in the situation," Shoigu is quoted as saying.
"Starting today, exercises of battalion tactical groups from the
Southern and Western military districts will begin near the borders with
Ukraine."
Ukraine issued a 48-hour
deadline for Russia to explain its military drills, the Ukrainian
Foreign Ministry said Thursday. The ministry did not say what Ukraine
would do if Russia does not comply.
NATO and the United
States have already voiced unease about an estimated 40,000 Russian
troops gathered near the Ukrainian border.
Ukraine's acting
President Oleksandr Turchynov had strong words for Moscow, accusing it
of "openly threatening" his country with its troop buildup on Ukraine's
eastern border.
Kiev's security
operation is intended to protect peaceful citizens, he said, but in
response Russia "coordinates and openly supports terrorist killers with
weapons in their hands" in eastern Ukraine.
"With no reason to do
so, the Russian leadership allows itself to boldly interfere in the
internal affairs of Ukraine," Turchynov said. "Russia supports terrorism
in our country at the state level."
U.N. Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon on Thursday called on all parties to refrain from violence
and intimidation, a statement from his office said.
"The secretary-general
is seriously concerned that the situation could quickly spin out of
control with consequences we cannot predict," it said. "Military action
must be avoided at all costs."
Activists: Sniper shot militiaman
Conflicting accounts have emerged about the number of casualties resulting from clashes Thursday.
The government in Kiev
confirmed operations to destroy three checkpoints around Slavyansk and
said its forces killed five pro-Russian militants. A police officer was
also injured, the Interior Ministry said.
Meanwhile, Stella
Horosheva, a spokeswoman for the self-appointed pro-Russian mayor of
Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, said an attack at an impromptu roadway
checkpoint outside the city had taken the life of one pro-Russian
militiaman and wounded another.
The pro-Russian unit at
the checkpoint told a CNN team that armored vehicles had come to the
roadblock but had not fired at anyone, and that locals had set fire to
tires to prevent them from passing.
The unit said two
members of the "self-defense" group were on their way home after an
overnight stint at the barricade when a sniper killed one and injured
another. Ponomaryov, visiting the site, also said a sniper had killed
one of the pro-Russian activists.
Unrest in eastern Ukraine
U.S. troops touch down in Eastern Europe
Ukrainian-Russian truce shattered
Is Russia's nightly news diet skewed?
The Interior Ministry
said leaflets had been distributed "which called on people to keep the
peace, not leave their residences, to keep children inside, to not react
to provocation and to not obey illegal orders issued by the
self-proclaimed illegal authorities."
The government accused
Ponomaryov of threatening to kill anyone possessing the leaflet. Reports
of threats against Slavyansk residents have not been independently
confirmed by CNN.
U.S. journalist freed
In a positive
development Thursday, a U.S. journalist who reportedly was held by
pro-Russian separatists in Slavyansk while working for Vice News has
been released, the outlet said.
Simon Ostrovsky, who was
reported detained Tuesday, "has been safely released and is in good
health," a statement on the Vice News website said.
His release came as the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe warned of continuing
attacks on journalists and a deterioration of media freedom in eastern
Ukraine.
Citing media reports,
OSCE Freedom of the Media representative Dunja Mijatovic named two other
journalists who have disappeared in the past two days -- Stepan
Chirich, a journalist with Russia's NTV channel, and Evgenii Gapich, a
photojournalist from a Ukrainian newspaper.
"I strongly encourage all parties to refrain from restrictive censoring and violent practices with regard to journalists," Mijatovic said. "Silencing and persecuting mass media is not acceptable under any circumstances."
Clashes in Artemivsk, Mariupol
Elsewhere in the eastern
Donetsk region, where some pro-Russian protesters have tried to declare
independence from Ukraine, gunmen opened fire on a Ukrainian military
unit overnight.
One Ukrainian soldier
was injured in the assault in the town of Artemivsk, Ukraine's Defense
Ministry said Thursday, but security forces fought off the attack and
retained control of the facility.
Ukrainian Interior
Minister Arsen Avakov on his Facebook page accused roughly 70 attackers
of trying to take weapons from the unit.
Both the government and pro-Russian protesters claimed victory Thursday in the eastern city of Mariupol.
Turchynov opened a
meeting of parliament with the announcement that the City Hall, which
pro-Russian protesters had occupied, had been freed.
Avakov said there were
no casualties in the operation and that the Interior Ministry was
preparing the premises for employees to return to work.
But pro-Russian protester Irina Voropayeva, in Mariupol, contradicted them both.
An assault on City Hall
failed to dislodge the protesters, she said. Some occupiers were injured
while they fought off attackers, whom she said were extreme-right
Ukrainian toughs.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry later revised its version of events in a post to its website.
A group of 30 people
armed with baseball bats entered City Hall early Thursday and demanded
the occupiers leave, it said. As the two groups clashed, police tried to
separate them. Five people were injured.
Obama: U.S. 'teed up' to impose more sanctions
A week ago, the United
States, Russia, the European Union and Ukraine sat down in Geneva,
Switzerland, to hammer out an agreement calling for illegal groups to
disarm and vacate occupied buildings, in return for an amnesty.
It has seemingly gone
ignored, as the rift between the parties involved grows and Russia and
the West accuse each other of foiling the agreement by meddling in
Ukraine's affairs.
On Thursday, U.S. and Russian leaders exchanged new barbs.
Speaking in Tokyo, U.S.
President Barack Obama again ruled out any military solution in Ukraine
but warned that the United States is "teed up" to impose further
sanctions on Russia if it does not abide by the April 17 deal.
"There was some
possibility that Russia could take the wiser course after the meetings
in Geneva," he said. "Instead, we continue to see militias and armed men
taking over buildings, harassing folks who are disagreeing with them,
and destabilizing the region, and we haven't seen Russia step up and
discourage that."
By contrast, he said,
the government in Kiev has taken "very concrete steps" in introducing an
amnesty law and offering constitutional reforms in line with the Geneva
pact.
But Russia sees things
differently, saying that according to the international deal, Kiev must
take responsibility for disarming the right-wing ultranationalists that
Moscow blames for violence.
"We don't have any
doubts that the first step must be done by the Kiev authorities,"
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference
Thursday.
He accused the West of
treating leaders in Kiev like "angels" who did nothing wrong while
blaming Russia for the unrest in eastern Ukraine.
Putin, speaking on
Russia 24, said the events unfolding in eastern Ukraine demonstrate that
Moscow's decision to support the Crimean people, who voted to join
Russia last month in a referendum condemned by the West, was right.
"Otherwise they would
have witnessed the same events as eastern Ukraine and surely even
worse," he said. "So, this is another proof that we have acted correctly
and on time."
The West claims that
Moscow has sent members of its armed forces into Ukraine, provided other
support for pro-Russian militants or generally contributed to an
atmosphere of distrust and instability.
Some in the West fear
that Russia may also seek to intervene in other countries where the
former Soviet Union historically had significant influence.
Amid the growing unease,
a contingent of U.S. Army paratroopers arrived Wednesday in Poland for
training exercises, at Warsaw's request.
SOURCE: CNN
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