Russia plans to destroy Ukraine: PM

FE Team | Published: May 05, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

ODESSA, May 4, (agencies): Deadly clashes and a fire in Odessa that killed 42 people in one day were part of a plan by Russia "to destroy Ukraine," the prime minister of the ex-Soviet republic said Sunday.
"Russia's aim was to repeat in Odessa what is happening in the east of the country," Arseniy Yatsenyuk told a news conference.
He was speaking during a visit to the southern port city of one million inhabitants after the violence that erupted on Friday.
After street clashes between pro-Russian militants and pro-Ukrainian activists that killed four, a huge inferno in a building where the pro-Russians took refuge killed another 38 after both sides traded petrol bombs, according to witnesses.
The tragic confrontation abruptly plunged Odessa into the same sort of violence that has gripped east Ukraine for the past two months. Kiev accuses Moscow of being behind an insurgency that has seen rebels taken control of more than a dozen eastern towns. He urged all Ukrainians to unite and to bury their differences "so as not to give the terrorists backed by Moscow the opportunity to divide our people".
He also said that the police chiefs of Odessa have all been sacked for not preventing the clashes and ensuing deaths. They would be replaced, he said.
Yatsenyuk's visit to the grief-stricken Black Sea port city came on the last day of a weekend of mourning decreed for those killed in the violence there and in the east.
Ukraine's authorities have previously admitted its security forces were "helpless" to roll back the pro-Russian militants in the east.
They have ordered the military to conduct an operation to against the rebels. Fierce fighting has been going on since Friday, especially around the flashpoint town of Slavyansk.
Meanwhile: Ukraine vowed  Sunday to broaden its operation against pro-Russian rebels as the crisis-hit country observed a second day of mourning after violence that left more than 50 people dead.
National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy said the armed forces would expand the "active stage of the operation in other towns where extremists and terrorists are carrying out illegal activities".
AFP reporters near the eastern town of Kostyantynivka, where rebels seized the town hall on April 28, saw a pro-Russian checkpoint abandoned and smouldering while barricades were being hastily erected in the centre.
Rebels defending the town hall behind makeshift barriers told AFP there had been fighting overnight near the town's television tower.
In nearby Kramatorsk, pro-Russians were holed up in the town hall and burned-out trolley buses and minivans blocked off streets in the city centre.
On Saturday, fierce gun battles erupted around the flashpoint town of Slavyansk as the army stormed rebel-held checkpoints, tightening the noose around what has become the epicentre of pro-Russian fervour.
Central Slayvansk was relatively calm early Sunday but citizens reported increasing difficulty obtaining basic foodstuffs in the besieged town of 160,000 people.
Meanwhile, seven European inspectors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe arrived home late Saturday after an eight-day ordeal in rebel captivity, a small chink of light in the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War.
Interim president Oleksandr Turchynov declared two days of mourning Saturday after brutal violence in Odessa claimed 42 lives and at least 10 died in military operations around Slavyansk, the worst bloodshed in months.