Russia’s foreign ministry has denounced alleged lawlessness by far-right activists in eastern Ukraine, a statement likely to trigger alarms about possible Russian intervention in the country.
Ukraine’s foreign minister said his country already feels like it is almost in a state of war after Russian forces took effective control of the Crimean Peninsula. A referendum has been called there for next Sunday on whether the region should split off and seek to become part of Russia.
Pro-Russia sentiment is also high in Ukraine’s east and there are fears Russia could seek to incorporate that area as well.
On Sunday, a pro-Russian crowd in the eastern city of Luhansk occupied the regional government headquarters, raised the Russian tricolor and demanded the right to hold a referendum on joining Russia, like in Crimea.
The Kremlin statement also claimed Russian citizens trying to enter Ukraine have been turned back at the border by Ukrainian officials.
Yesterday the Russian foreign ministry said lawlessness “now rules in eastern regions of Ukraine as a result of the actions of fighters of the so-called ‘Right Sector’ with the full connivance” of Ukraine’s new authorities.
Right Sector is a grouping of far-right and nationalist factions. Its activists were among the most confrontational of the demonstrators in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.
Yesterday in Kiev, foreign minister Andrii Deshchytsya received his counterparts from Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, who had come to show support for Ukraine in what has turned into Europe’s greatest geopolitical crisis since the end of the Cold War.
“We have to admit that our life now is almost like… a war,” Mr Deshchytsya said.
“We have to cope with an aggression that we do not understand.”
He said Ukraine is counting on help from abroad to deal with its neighbour to the east.