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| Workers of the Ukrainian company Metinvest clear away debris in a government building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Friday, May 16, 2014. Local patrols by steelworkers have forced pro-Russia insurgents to retreat from the government buildings they had seized in a major city in eastern Ukraine, giving residents hope that a wave of anarchy was over. Mariupol is the second-largest city in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, one of two regions that declared independence Monday from the central government in Kiev. Citizen patrols began there earlier this week as Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man, urged steelworkers at his factories to help police restore order. |
MARIUPOL, Ukraine
(AP) -- Steelworkers from plants owned by Ukraine's richest man
retook government buildings from pro-Moscow insurgents, reversing the
tide of rebellion and lawlessness that has gripped this industrial port
and dealing a setback to anti-Kiev forces aspiring to merge with Russia.
Wearing
overalls and hard hats, dozens of workers cleared away barricades of
debris and tires outside the Mariupol city hall on Friday, scoring early
successes against the pro-Russian forces, but threatening to open a new
and dangerously unpredictable cycle of confrontation.
"People
are tired of war and chaos. Burglaries and marauding have to stop,"
said Viktor Gusak, a steelworker who joined in the effort to banish the
pro-Russia militants from Mariupol, the Donetsk region's second-largest
city and the site of bloody clashes last week between Ukrainian troops
and the insurgents.
About 75 miles (120
kilometers) to the north, armed backers of Ukrainian unity dressed in
black seized control of a police station in a village just inside the
troubled Donetsk region, vowing to expel the separatists through force
if necessary.
The moves, which began Thursday
in Mariupol and the village of Velyka Novosilka, were a blow to the
separatists who have seized control of government offices in this city
and a dozen others in the east.
Other similar
and apparently unaccountable groups look to be emerging elsewhere in the
chaotic east. Should they make substantial incursions, it is unclear
whether they will be perceived as liberators or attackers acting on
behalf of a little-liked government in Kiev. The latter could
precipitate civil conflict.
Government forces
have in recent weeks achieved only limited results in quashing the
self-styled Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics" - armed groups that
this week declared independence for their regions following contentious
referendums. Polls have shown, however, that a majority of eastern
Ukrainians support unity, though most are too fearful of the pro-Russian
militias to say so publicly.
That has handed the initiative to expel the insurgents to forces acting independently of authorities in the capital, Kiev.
In
Mariupol, billionaire Rinat Akhmetov's Metinvest holding group
organized citizen patrols of steelworkers working alongside police to
help improve security and get insurgents to vacate the buildings they
had seized.
Until now, Akhmetov had been
notable for his noncommittal stance during the turbulence that has for
more than a month gripped the region that is home to his most lucrative
industrial assets.
A video statement by the
47-year-old industrialist on Thursday made it clear that his loyalties
are not so much with the Kiev government but with his native Donbass -
territory that encompasses the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. He called
for major constitutional reforms, while preserving a united Ukraine.
"This
is when power goes from Kiev to the regions. This is when authorities
are not appointed but elected. And this is when local authorities take
responsibility for people's real future," he said.
Independence or absorption into Russia would spell economic catastrophe for the region, he added.
Since
President Viktor Yanukovych's ouster in February, Ukraine's new
leadership has reached out to oligarchs for help - appointing them as
governors in eastern regions, where loyalties to Moscow were strong.
Akhmetov, who served in Yanukovych's Party of Regions, has avoided such
engagements and his attempt to set future terms on the future of the
east may cause the government to bristle.
A
representative of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic was also
a party to the Akhmetov-brokered deal in Mariupol, but the insurgent
group later disavowed its participation.
Instead,
Donetsk People's Republic adviser Roman Manekin said in his own video
address that Akhmetov should submit to the authority of the new would-be
independent entity.
"We impatiently await such a statement. Otherwise, there will be no Akhmetov in Donbass," Manekin said.
Manekin didn't specify how the Donetsk People's Republic intended to enforce its demands.
German
Mandrakov, who commanded the pro-Russian insurgents occupying city hall
in Mariupol, said Friday that his associates fled, while he was
"forced" to leave the building they had controlled for weeks.
"Everyone
ran away," he said, using a vulgar Russian word for cowards. "Someone
is trying to sow discord among us, someone has signed something, but we
will continue our fight."
The citizen patrols
organized by Metinvest now include some 100 teams consisting of two
policemen and six to eight steelworkers, said police spokeswoman Yulia
Lafazan.
In Washington, the White House
welcomed moves by pro-Russian insurgents to leave government building
they had seized in eastern Ukraine.
"We
certainly welcome any indication that separatists who ... have seized
buildings, who have set up roadblocks, stockpiled weapons, are vacating
buildings and ceasing the kinds of activities that have only
destabilized the situation in Ukraine and led to confrontations and
violence," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
The
industrial laborers of eastern Ukraine have a history of mobilizing to
achieve political goals. In the late 1990s, hundreds of coal miners
marched on Kiev demanding wage hikes in scenes that remain impressed on
the memories of many Ukrainians.
In the
bucolic rural village of Velyka Novosilka, a two-hour drive northwest of
Mariupol, a shadowy fledgling volunteer militia calling itself the
Donbass Battalion spoke of its own plans to expel pro-Russian
insurgents.
The militia took over a police
station Thursday and took down the Donetsk People's Republic tricolor
that had been fluttering outside.
Speaking to
The Associated Press, Donbass Battalion commander Semyon Semyonchenko
denied his unit had received financial aid from either the government or
tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, who media reports have linked with
pro-government militias.
On Friday, around 20
battalion members were seen napping on bales of hay in a barn in Velyka
Novosilka and gave no immediate indication of plans to deploy elsewhere.
At least one said he was an activist in the nationalist Svoboda party,
whose role in the interim government installed after Yanukovych's ouster
has led pro-Russian activists to decry what they have dubbed a "fascist
junta."
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who
is running for president in a May 25 vote, announced Friday that 20,000
volunteers have enrolled in a resistance movement.
Speaking
to supporters in the Poltava region, which lies just east of Kiev, she
said that militia units and defense brigades have already been created,
although she provided few specifics.
At the
heart of the unrest in eastern Ukraine, however, it is the pro-Russia
insurgents that are busy fortifying their territories.
Outside
the strategic city of Slovyansk, an insurgent stronghold for more than a
month now, armed separatists installed a new checkpoint on the eastern
approaches to the city, blocking a major highway that links Kharkiv,
Ukraine's second-largest city, with the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don
across the border.
In Kiev, Ukraine's acting
president, Oleksandr Turchynov, on Friday urged residents of the eastern
regions to stop helping the separatists and support the central
government.
"You've got to support the
anti-terrorist operation so that we could defeat terrorists and
separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk regions together," he told
parliament. "The actions of the terrorists are threatening lives and
welfare of the people."
