42 killed as conflict hits Odessa
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AT least 42 people were killed in street battles between supporters and opponents of Russia in southern Ukraine that ended with dozens of pro-Russia protesters being incinerated in a burning building.
Pro-Russia rebels in the east freed seven European military observers yesterday after holding them hostage for eight days, while Kiev pressed on with its biggest military operation so far to reclaim rebel-held territory.
The riot in the Black Sea port of Odessa on Friday was by far the worst incident in Ukraine since a February uprising that ended with a pro-Russia president fleeing the country. It also spread the violence from the eastern separatist heartland to an area far from the Russian frontier.
The Kremlin, which has massed tens of thousands of soldiers on the Ukraine’s eastern border said the government in Kiev and its Western backers were responsible for the deaths.
Kiev’s Interior Ministry blamed the pro-Russia protesters, saying they attacked pro-Ukrainians before retreating to the trade union headquarters, from where they opened fire on the crowd and threw out the petrol bombs that caused the blaze.
“Today we Ukrainians are constantly being pushed into confrontation, into civil conflict, toward the destruction of our country. We cannot allow this to happen,” said acting President Oleksander Turchinov.
Kiev said the violence was provoked by foreign demonstrators sent in from Transdniestria, a nearby breakaway pro-Russia region of Moldova.
It said most of the dead who had been identified so far were from there.
Yesterday, people put flowers and candles at the union building, where 2,000 pro-Russia protesters gathered, chanting: “Odessa is a Russian city.”
The bloodshed came on the same day Kiev launched a push to reassert control over separatist areas in the east, where pro-Russia rebels have proclaimed a “People’s Republic of Donetsk.”
The rebels aim to hold a referendum on May 11 on secession from Ukraine, similar to one staged in March in Ukraine’s Crimea region.
The government said yesterday it was pressing on with the offensive in the area for a second day, and had recaptured a TV tower and a security services building from rebels in Kramatorsk, near the rebel stronghold of Slaviansk.
“We are not stopping,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a post on Facebook.”
But the military operation was overshadowed by the violence in Odessa.
Police yesterday put the overall death toll in the city at 42, 37 of whom were killed in the blaze. It was the biggest toll since about 100 people were killed in Kiev protests in February that toppled President Viktor Yanukovich.
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