KIEV, April 14 (RIA Novosti) – The urgency behind the recent military operation against protestors in southeastern Ukraine was due to the regime’s reluctance to put off the upcoming presidential election, a senior Ukrainian official said Monday.
Troops loyal to the new Kiev authorities and fighters from the radical Right Sector movement launched an operation Sunday to suppress pro-federalization protesters in the eastern town of Slaviansk.
Viktoria Syumar, Deputy Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, wrote on her Facebook page that the council chose to deploy the army instead of declaring an emergency “because a state of emergency would put the elections campaign on hold in the territory and sow doubt about its legitimacy.”
According to demonstrators, three people died in the fighting.
Over the weekend, interim Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchinov issued a deadline to pro-federalization protesters to disarm or face a “full-scale anti-terrorist operation” involving the country’s armed forces.
Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin called on the international community Monday to demand that Ukrainian authorities stop escalating tensions in the crisis-hit country that could lead to a civil war.
Rallies in support of federalization have been rocking the country since early March, with activists in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv capturing regional government buildings to put pressure on the country’s coup-imposed regime.
On Saturday, the protests spilled over to numerous towns and cities across Ukraine’s eastern province of Donetsk, including Slaviansk, Mariupol, Yenakiyevo, and Kramatorsk.
