42 killed in Ukraine riot and fire, OSCE monitors freed

FE Team | Published: May 04, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

UKRAINE, May 3 (agencies): At least 42 people were killed in street battles between supporters and opponents of Russia in southern Ukraine that ended with pro-Russian protesters trapped in a flaming building, bringing the country closer to war.
Pro-Russian rebels in the east freed seven European military observers on Saturday after holding them hostage for eight days, while Kiev pressed on with a military campaign to reclaim rebel-held territory in the area.
The riot in the Black Sea port of Odessa that ended in a deadly blaze in a trade union building was by far the worst incident in Ukraine since a February uprising that ended with a pro-Russian president fleeing the country.
It also spread the violence from the eastern separatist heartland to an area far from the Russian frontier, raising the prospect of unrest sweeping more broadly across a country of around 45 million people the size of France.
On Saturday morning, people placed flowers near the burnt-out doors of the trade union building, lighting candles and putting up the yellow, white and red flag of the city. The burnt remains of a tented camp of pro-Russian demonstrators nearby had been swept away. People spoke of their horror at what happened.
At the nearby hospital, residents queued up to offer blood and others went to find out what medicine was needed so they could go out to buy it.
Oleg Konstantinov, a journalist covering the events for a local Internet site, said bullets had flown in the melee before the blaze: "I was hit in the arm, then I started crawling, and then got hit in the back and leg."
The Kremlin, which has massed tens of thousands of soldiers on the eastern Ukrainian frontier and proclaims the right to invade to protect Russian speakers, said the provisional government in Kiev and its Western backers were responsible.
The Odessa bloodshed came on the same day as the biggest push yet by the government in Kiev to reassert its control over separatist areas in the east, hundreds of kilometers away, where heavily armed pro-Russian rebels have proclaimed a "People's Republic of Donetsk".
The rebels there aim to hold a referendum on May 11 on secession from Ukraine, similar to one staged in March in Ukraine's Crimea region, which was seized and annexed by Russia in a move that overturned the post-Cold War diplomatic order.
Rebels in the eastern town of Slaviansk, their most heavily fortified redoubt, shot down two Ukrainian helicopters on Friday, killing two crew, and stalled an advance by Ukrainian troops in armored vehicles. On Saturday the government said it was pressing on with the offensive in the area for a second day.
"We are not stopping," Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a post on Facebook. Ukrainian forces had seized control of a television tower in Kramatorsk, near Slaviansk, he said. "The active phase of the operation continued at dawn."
Overnight, Russian media reported fighting near Kramatorsk, citing hospital sources as saying one person had been killed and nine wounded. Separatists said three fighters and two civilians were killed in the Ukrainian advance on the town.
The military operation in the east was overshadowed by the violence in Odessa, a vibrant multi-ethnic port city that has seen some support for separatists but nothing like the riots that erupted on Friday.
Police said four people were killed, at least three shot dead, and dozens wounded in unprecedented running battles between people backing Kiev and pro-Russian activists. The clashes ended with separatists holed up in a the building that caught fire. Television footage showed petrol bombs exploding against its walls.