KIEV, April 7 (RIA Novosti) – A group of protesters pushing for broader regional autonomy in Ukraine stormed government buildings in three eastern cities late on Sunday, local media reports said, citing eyewitnesses.
The activists seized the offices of the national security service in Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as the regional administration headquarters in Kharkov, the Donetsk-based Ostrov news agency reported Monday.
Demonstrators in the country's eastern regions, which are largely Russian-speaking, have called for a variety of responses to the new government in Kiev that came to power in a coup in February.
Residents have called for constitutional reform to create a federal style of government and others have proposed holding Crimea-style referendums to allow individual regions to determine their own status.
Nine people, including both demonstrators and police, were injured in Lugansk on Sunday, local police said. Protesters threw stun grenades, eggs, stones and Molotov cocktails at the building, which caught fire as a result.
Six protesters detained during the attack were released after talking with authorities. The activists also seized an arms room in the building and blockaded a highway, according to the Ostrov news agency.
Several thousand people reportedly took control of a national bank building in Lugansk. Demonstrators flooded the city's streets, waving Russian flags and chanting “Russia! Russia!”
In Donetsk, protesters also took control of a regional council, building barricades of car tires and barbed wire. Prosecutors have called the events in the city “mass riots."
Earlier Monday, law enforcement agencies took control over a local administration office in Kharkov that had been seized by supporters of federalization for the country, Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Facebook.
“The working process has begun. I thank everyone who has helped me. I'm working in Kharkov. I’m asking people in Kharkov to support the normal process of solving the crisis,” the minister said.
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