3 dead after Black Sea base attack

KIEV, Apr 17 (AP): Ukraine's interior minister says three pro-Russian militants have been killed and 13 wounded after Ukrainian troops repelled an attack on a National Guard base in the Black Sea port of Mariupol in the south-east part of the country.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a statement Thursday that a crowd of around 300 men, armed with Molotov cocktails, attacked the base late Wednesday but were repelled by the National Guard and police forces. Avakov said that 63 people had been arrested as a result of the operation and that most of the attackers were disarmed.

A well-armed, Russia-backed insurgency has sowed chaos in eastern Ukraine in the past weeks. Militants have seized police stations and administrative buildings in at least ten towns in the region, including Mariupol.

AFP adds: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused Ukraine's new authorities of driving the country towards the abyss but said that dialogue was the only way out of the intensifying crisis.

"Only through dialogue, through democratic procedures and not with the use of armed forces, tanks and planes can order be imposed in the country," Putin said at the start of a major nationwide phone-in broadcast on Russian television.

He accused the authorities who took over after the fall of president Viktor Yanukovych of driving the country "to the abyss". He also said it was "nonsense" to claim Russian forces were operating in the east of Ukraine, saying those involved in protest actions were "all local citizens".