Slavyansk (Ukraine): Pro-Russian insurgents gained more ground today in Ukraine`s separatist east while Kiev`s Western-backed leader sought a way out of the crisis by proposing a referendum and seeking UN help.
The Kremlin added an ominous tone to the rapid escalation by saying that President Vladimir Putin had received "a lot" of requests from Ukraine`s Russified rust belt "to help, to intervene in some form".
The crystallising possibility of an invasion by some 40,000 Russian troops massed along Ukraine`s eastern border drew European calls for further sanctions against Russia and the approval of more than USD 2 billion in US and EU aid for Kiev`s embattled interim administration.
But the pro-Kremlin militias who have seized state buildings in coordinated raids across economically depressed eastern Ukraine appeared only to be gaining confidence while paying little heed to the "full-scale anti-terrorist operation" announced with much fanfare in Kiev.
Protesters armed with rocks and clubs smashed their way inside a police station in Gorlivka -- a coal mining town straddling a highway between the regional capital Donetsk and the city of Slavyansk to the north that is now under effective militants` control.
The unrestrained crowd whistled and cheered as they ripped away metal shields from the visibly frightened local force before raising the tricolour flag of the self-declared "People`s Republic of Donetsk".
And Kalashnikov-wielding militants in the 300,000 strong city of Slavyansk -- who are already in control of the local police station and security service office -- also took command of its administration building before asking Putin to send in his troops.
"We call on Russia to protect us and not to allow the genocide of the people of Donbass (Donetsk region)," rebel leader Vyacheslav Ponomaryov told a group of reporters.
"We ask President Putin to help us."
The spreading unrest is rooted in the deep mistrust in the big industrial cities that form a corridor along Ukraine`s Russian border of the new, nationalist government that enlisted Western support in toppling the Kremlin-backed authorities in February.
Pro-Kremlin protesters in rundown regions such as Donetsk and Kharkiv are now seeking local referendums on either broader rights or an option to join the Russian Federation.
Ukraine`s interim president today made a dramatic about-face aimed at defusing the tensions by backing a national poll on turning the centralised nation into a loose federation in which regions enjoyed broader rights.
