SLOVYANSK, Ukraine (AP) – Ukraine is launching a “large-scale anti-terrorist operation” to resist attacks of armed pro-Russian forces, Ukraine’s President Oleksandr Turchynov said today in a televised address.
The authorities in Kiev will use the army in order to prevent Russian forces from moving in, as they did in Crimea, Turchynov said, pledging amnesty to anyone laying down arms by tomorrow morning.
“The Security Council has made a decision to begin a large-scale anti-terrorist operation with participation of army forces,” he said. “We’re not going to allow Russia to repeat the Crimean scenario in Ukraine’s east.”
Ukrainian special forces exchanged gunfire with a pro-Russia militia in an eastern city this morning, with at least one security officer killed and five others wounded. It was the first reported gun battle in eastern Ukraine, where armed pro-Russia men have seized a number of government buildings in recent days.
Turchynov said a Security Service captain was killed and two colonels wounded in a gun battle outside Slovyansk, where the police station and the Security Service office were seized a day earlier.
An Associated Press reporter found a bullet-ridden SUV on the side of the road and a pool of blood on the passenger seat where the gun battle was supposed to have taken place.
Vladimir Kolodchenko, a lawmaker from the area who witnessed the attack, said a car with four gunmen pulled up on the road in a wooden area outside Slovyansk and opened fire on Ukrainian soldiers who were standing beside their vehicles. Both attackers and the Ukrainian servicemen left soon after the shooting.
Unrest has spread to several municipalities in eastern Ukraine, including the major industrial city of Donetsk, which has a large Russian-speaking population.
