Ukrainian military went ahead on Thursday with it military offensive against pro-Russian activists, killing five separatists, and prompting President Vladimir Putin to warn against consequences.
Ukrainian military went ahead on Thursday with it military offensive against pro-Russian activists, killing five separatists, and prompting President Vladimir Putin to warn against consequences.
In Slavyansk, a flashpoint east Ukrainian town held by separatists since mid-April, armored military vehicles drove past an abandoned roadblock in flames to take up position, AFP reporters saw.
Shots were heard as a helicopter flew overhead, and the pro-Kremlin activists ordered all civilians out of the town hall to take up defensive positions inside.
"During the clashes, up to five terrorists were eliminated," and three checkpoints destroyed, the interior ministry said in a statement, referring to separatists. Regional medical authorities confirmed one death and one person wounded.
Earlier Thursday, Ukrainian special forces seized back control of the town hall in the southeastern port city of Mariupol with no casualties, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that deployment of military in east Ukraine was a crime against its own people that will "have consequences."
"If Kiev really began to use the army against the country's population... that is a very serious crime against its own people," Putin said.
If the pro-West Kiev authorities are resorting to force, "it is of course some kind of junta," he said.
"That is simply a punitive measure that will without question have consequences for the people making these decisions, including for our inter-governmental relations," he added, without specifying the nature of consequences.
Speaking at an event in Saint Petersburg, Putin also added that the Western sanctions imposed against Russia for the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine are not going to be effective.
"Everyone knows... that no sanctions are effective in the modern world, they never have an intended effect," Putin said, calling them "political".
"It is absolutely not critical," he said. "Though I would not say they are a positive thing either."
