Protest Expands in Eastern Ukraine as Kiev Threatens Military Action
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The anti-Kiev protests are expanding in Ukraine's Donetsk Region, where activists are besieging police HQ in the city of Gorlovka. The central authorities are threatening to use military force to quash the uprising.
Gorlovka is an eastern Ukrainian city with a population of more than 250,000 inhabitants. The activists apparently spent the night in City Hall and proceeded to take over the police HQ on Monday morning, RT reported.
Troops holding the HQ barricaded in as a crowd of several hundred people gathered outside, according to footage from the scene. At one point they opened fire and used stun grenades, when the protesters tried to raise a Russian flag on the entrance to the building.
The person trying to set the flag atop the entrance roof was pushed down and broke his arm. The flag was taken down right after it was raised.
The angered protesters threw a Molotov cocktail in apparent retaliation, but the fire was quickly extinguished. They later forced their way and demanded that the defenders of the building surround their weapon and leave.
The interior of the building sustained some damage as the attackers, but no major instances of violence were seen.
Some more radical people in the crowd called for immediate revenge for the incident with the flag as the police chief Andrey Krishchenko as he was escorted out of the building, but their more cool-headed comrades restrained them.
The officer, who reportedly was the one to push down the activist, sustained a head injury in a scuffle inside the building and was taken to hospital.
For a third day in a row the coup-appointed government in the Ukrainian capital demanded that the protesters vacate all the taken buildings and lay down arms, threatening to send the army against them, if they don't. However, as the deadline expired on Monday morning, the protesters remained defiant.
The Kiev-appointed regional government announced a “special operation regime.” The central government earlier announced an “anti-terrorist operation” in the Donetsk Region. The Ukrainian authorities refrained from announcing an emergency, saying this would require for the presidential election campaign to be put on hold.