MOSCOW, April 15 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine is on the verge of a civil war, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday.
“Blood has been shed in Ukraine again. The country is on the threshold of a civil war,” Medvedev said.
“This is a great tragedy,” he said, adding that the country’s new leadership had failed to maintain law and order.
“And the illegitimate leaders, on the contrary, hope to restore the order, which they cynically defied, rising to power following an armed coup,” the prime minister wrote, adding that the new Ukrainian authorities are “falling into their own trap.”
"Action has led to reaction. A crime against the state resulted in popular protests in the regions. It’s a chain reaction of events, political and economic,” he said. “It is a pity that people became hostage to ungifted politicians who they didn’t vote for, and irresponsible radicals who took the place of the police and army.”
“Chaos filled in the political void,” he added.
Protesters rallying in support of federalization said one of their activists and two members of the ultra-nationalist Right Sector group were killed in the operation in the eastern Ukrainian town of Slaviansk on Sunday, Nikolai Solntsev, an activist of the protest movement, told RIA Novosti on Sunday.
On Monday, Ukraine’s parliament-appointed acting President Oleksandr Turchynov announced the start of a large-scale operation in the southeast of the country involving military forces.
Rallies in support of federalization have been rocking the country since last month, with activists in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv occupying regional government buildings to put pressure on the country’s coup-imposed regime.
In February, the Ukrainian parliament backed by far-right movements ousted from power President Viktor Yanukovych, amended the constitution and scheduled an early presidential election for May 25.
Moscow has described the uprising in Kiev as an illegitimate fascist coup and a military seizure of power, which resulted in it taking steps to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine, including the reunification with Crimea.
