{"id":6810,"date":"2014-04-12T18:46:38","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T10:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=6810"},"modified":"2014-05-09T10:57:19","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T02:57:19","slug":"armed-men-take-over-ukraine-police-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/04\/12\/armed-men-take-over-ukraine-police-station\/","title":{"rendered":"Armed men take over Ukraine police station"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Russian<\/a>
Russian armed troops block Ukrainian fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, Crimea, Ukraine (File photo: March 6, 2014). AlexandCo Studio \/ Shutterstock<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — At least a dozen armed men in camouflage seized a police station in a small town in eastern Ukraine on Saturday morning as tensions in the country’s Russia-speaking regions intensify.<\/p>\n

The town of Slovyansk is about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of the regional center, Donetsk, where pro-Russian protesters have occupied a government building for nearly a week. Protesters hoisted the Russian flag above the building, photos and videos from the scene showed.<\/p>\n

The men who stormed the police station haven’t presented any demands, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said.<\/p>\n

Minister Arsen Avakov pledged a “very tough response” to the seizure while local media reported special forces dispatched to the area.<\/p>\n

Videos on a local website showed several men armed with machine guns in balaclavas guarding the entrance to the police station. They are all wearing St. George’s ribbons, a symbol of the Soviet Union’s victory in WWII, which has become a symbol of pro-Russian protesters in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Gunshots rang out in a video from the scene after an armed man shouted to a cameraman to stop recording. No casualties were immediately reported.<\/p>\n

The town’s mayor, Nelya Shtepa, said on local television that she is holding talks with the attackers who she insisted were from the area.<\/p>\n

Protesters who have held the administration building in Donetsk since Sunday initially called for a referendum on secession but later reduced the demand to a vote on autonomy within Ukraine with the possibility of holding another later on whether to join Russia.<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland was the support base for Kremlin-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in February after months of protests. Last month, the Crimea region voted to secede and was annexed by Russia – but only after Russia took over the peninsula by force.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian government has accused Russia of fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine in a bid to derail next months’ presidential election in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed to this report from Kiev.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — At least a dozen armed men in camouflage seized a police station in a small town …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":6811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,17],"tags":[407],"class_list":["post-6810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news-w","tag-ukraine","mauthors-peter-leonard","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}