Donetsk: Dozens of pro-Russian separatists seized control of the the regional television station in Ukraine`s eastern city of Donetsk on Sunday, and threatend of broadcasting a Kremlin-backed Russian channel insted of regional channels.
Four separatists wearing masks and armed with baseball bats and shields, were standing at the main gate of the building controlling all access, while many others were spotted inside wearing camouflage uniforms.
15 police officers were present on the spot but were not seen trying to resist the separatists. One senior police officer sitting in a vehicle nearby, said it worthless and pointless to intervene them.
It was the first time the station had been seized by the separatists, though previously a transmission tower in the Donetsk region had briefly been seized and technicians forced to broadcast Russian stations` output.
Pro-Russian separatists, some of them armed, have seized about a dozen official buildings in eastern ukraine. They say they are rising up against a Ukrainian government they say is illegitimate, but Kiev says they are proxies of the Russian government bent on destabilising Ukraine.
About an hour after the station in Donetsk was overrun, a scheduled programmes, a children`s show "Circle of the Sun" was being broadcast.
(With agency inputs)
