Ukraine offers amnesty to pro-Russian militants

FE Team | Published: April 11, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

DONETSK, Ukraine, Apr 10 (AFP): The embattled acting president of Ukraine promised on Thursday not to prosecute pro-Russian militants occupying government buildings in the east of the country if they laid down their arms and halted a four-day standoff.
The olive branch came as the clock ticked down to a Friday morning deadline for the separatists to walk out of the state security building in the eastern city of Lugansk and the seat of government in nearby Donetsk or face the possible use of force.
The armed assailants want the heavily Russified east of the culturally splintered ex-Soviet nation to hold independence referendums like the one that led to Moscow's annexation of Crimea last month.
Their demands have added extra urgency to the first round of direct talks that EU and US diplomats have managed to convince both Moscow and Kiev to join at the end of next week.
Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, in power since the February 22 ouster of a pro-Russian leader but deemed illegitimate by the Kremlin, told lawmakers that Ukraine's latest secessionist crisis could be resolved peacefully.
"If people lay down their arms and free the administration buildings... we guarantee that we will not launch any criminal proceedings against them," he promised.
"I am ready to formalise this in a presidential decree," said Turchynov. "We can solve this problem today."
The Donetsk separatists had earlier proclaimed the creation of their own "people's republic" and called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to push the tens of thousands of troops now massed along the border into Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland.
Many in Ukraine's southeast-a region with a much longer history of Russian control that stretches back to tsarist times-are wary of the more nationalist leaders who rose to power in Kiev. They have been looking to Putin for help.
But the two building occupations have drawn only small rallies of supporters. Some polls show that the region's majority would actually prefer avoiding joining the Russian Federation.
The militants holed up inside the Donetsk government seat were busy on Thursday fortifying their barricades with razor wire and old tyres that could be set on fire in case of a police assault.
Someone had painted a huge sign reading "Russia" on the side of the imposing building while a small group of elderly people handed out fliers under the drizzling rain claiming "Nazis are in power" in Kiev.
The negotiations in Donetsk-a blue-collar coal mining region where ousted president Viktor Yanukovych made his political career-have involved some of Ukraine's most powerful security officers as well as its richest tycoon.
Officials said businessman and Shakhtar football club owner Rinat Akhmetov and the region's governor have both joined Kiev's efforts to tone down the militants' demands.