“There is not a single representative of the Russian armed forces here. Nor of the state structures of Russia,” said Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, blaming the Ukrainian authorities for the hostilities.
“If they had not come to us we wouldn’t need any weapons. We are defending ourselves,” he told AFP.
However, The US State Department on Monday released images it claimed proves armed separatists in eastern Ukraine are actually Russian military or intelligence officers.
The photos, said the state department, showed a military fighter with a distinctive red beard seen in Georgia in 2008 — when Russia invaded — wearing the insignia of a Russian special forces unit. The same man is also pictured in Crimea and Slavyansk.
Other images from Slavyansk show men carrying the same kind of RPG 26 rocket launchers issued to Russian troops.
Jen Psaki said it was “just further evidence of the connection between Russia and the armed militants”.
Meanwhile, Viktor Yanukovych — the Kremlin backed president toppled in the pro EU protests that unleashed the current crisis — demanded Kiev withdraw its armed forces from the separatist east to avoid a “bloodbath”, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Ukraine’s new government last week launched a military operation to try to dislodge the separatists, but failing badly to do so it put it on hold until at least Tuesday, after the Easter holiday.
A spokesman in Kiev for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is monitoring implementation of the Geneva agreement, told AFP there was “no confirmation” of the separatists leaving occupied buildings.
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