Russian Roulette: The Invasion of Ukraine (Dispatch Six)
Subscribe to VICE News here: In dispatch six, VICE News correspondent Simon Ostrovsky travels to the Kherson region of m. Moscow #39;s move to occupy Crimea with...
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Russian Roulette: The Invasion of Ukraine (Dispatch Six) - Video
Ukraine wants talks, protester killed
Ukraine's premier has visited the United Nations to urge Russia to negotiate an end to the stand-off between their countries, as street battles in his homeland turned bloody.
At least one pro-Kiev protester was stabbed and killed in the eastern city of Donetsk when a demonstration in favour of Ukrainian unity was attacked by a Russian separatist crowd.
News of the death broke as Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk addressed an emergency session of the UN Security Council on the crisis opposing his interim government and the Kremlin.
Yatsenyuk said a negotiated solution was still possible, if Russia agrees to withdraw its forces from the Ukrainian region of Crimea and begin a serious diplomatic dialogue.
'We want to have talks. We don't want to have any kind of military aggression,' he insisted, turning to directly address Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin.
Churkin ridiculed the idea that there had been an 'idyllic situation' before the crisis, but said: 'Russia does not want war and nor do the Russians, and I'm convinced that Ukrainians don't want this either.'
Ukraine and Russia have been locked in an escalating stand-off since February 22, when a street revolt overthrew Ukraine's former pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin refuses to recognise Yatsenyuk's new pro-Western administration, and tensions are building between rival camps inside Ukraine.
The crisis could come to a head on Sunday when Crimea - now occupied by pro-Moscow forces - is due to hold a referendum on becoming part of Russia.
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Ukraine's acting interior minister says two people have been killed and several wounded in a shootout in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Arsen Avakov wrote on his official Facebook page early Saturday that around 30 people "from both sides" were arrested during a shootout late on Friday.
Russian state news agency Itar Tass reported that shots were fired from the offices of the far-right Ukrainian nationalist group, Right Sector, but Avakov made no mention of the group and said the incident was under investigation.
Russian media frequently point to Right Sector as exemplifying a fascist threat to Russians in eastern Ukraine.
Violence has escalated in Ukraine's Russia-leaning east in recent days, as pro-Russia demonstrators have seized government buildings and clashed with supporters of the new Kiev government. At least one person died and 17 were wounded in clashes in the city of Donetsk on Thursday.
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Ukraine's acting president accused "Kremlin agents" on Saturday of fomenting deadly violence in eastern cities, in one of the most direct and highest-level criticisms aimed by Kiev at President Vladimir Putin.
From his speaker's chair in parliament, interim head of state Oleksander Turchinov referred to three deaths in two incidents this week in Donetsk and Kharkiv and told opposition lawmakers: "You know as well as we do who is organizing mass protests in eastern Ukraine - it is Kremlin agents who are organizing and funding them, who are causing people to be murdered."
Turchinov has warned of a risk of a Russian invasion of the east following Moscow's occupation of the Crimea peninsula.
Ukrainian officials have called on people in the mainly Russian-speaking cities of the industrial east not to rise to provocation that Russia might use to justify sending in troops.
First published March 15 2014, 5:40 AM
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Ukraine braces for new demonstrations
Ukraine is bracing for new pro-Russian protests in the tense eastern city of Donetsk after Moscow threatened to stop crucial gas supplies to the country, further escalating hostilities with the West.
Donetsk, a focal point of the crisis engulfing Ukraine since the protests that toppled president Viktor Yanukovych, was expecting a large demonstration by activists demanding a secession referendum like the one planned for the Crimean peninsula.
The latest show of pro-Moscow sentiment in the largely Russian-speaking southeast comes after Russia threatened on Friday to halt gas supplies to Ukraine following Western sanctions to punish the Kremlin for seizing de facto control of Crimea.
The warning by Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom, which could affect supplies to other countries, raised the spectre of previous gas disputes between Russia and Ukraine that deeply rattled European economies in 2005-2006 and again in 2009.
Gazprom said the move was in response to unpaid bills, but the threat - made after the European Union warned it could toughen sanctions against Moscow - underscored the Kremlin's resolve to stand its ground in the biggest East-West crisis since the Cold War.
In a sign of the tensions racking Crimea, Ukraine's defence ministry said late on Friday that unidentified militants had smashed through the gates of a Ukrainian air force base in Sevastopol.
No shots were fired in the incident.
A convoy of foreign observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was earlier stopped at a checkpoint in Crimea guarded by pro-Kremlin gunmen.
Russia's foreign ministry accused the OSCE of attempting to enter the Black Sea peninsula uninvited and 'without considering the opinions and recommendations of the Russian side'.
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