DONETSK, Ukraine – Ukraine’s prime minister on Friday told leaders in the country’s restive east that he is committed to allowing regions to have more powers but left it unclear how his ideas differed from the demands of protesters now occupying government buildings or Russia’s advocacy of federalization.
The officials whom Arseniy Yatsenyuk met in Donetsk did not include representatives of the protesters. The officials asked Yatsenyuk to allow referenda on autonomy for their regions, not on secession.
“There are no separatists among us,” said Gennady Kernes, mayor of the Kharkiv region where protesters had occupied a government building earlier in the week.
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.
Protesters in the eastern cities of Donetsk and Luhansk are occupying government buildings and calling for referenda on regional autonomy that could lead to annexation by Russia.
The protesters in Donetsk, who have held the regional administration building since Sunday, initially called for a referendum on secession but later reduced the demand to one on autonomy, with the possibility of holding another later on whether the region would remain part of Ukraine or seek to become an autonomous region within Russia.
The eastern parts of Ukraine have a high proportion of Russian-speakers and many of them fear that the acting government that took over when Yanukovych fled will repress them. Kiev and Western officials in turn claim Russia is whipping up tensions in the east, with the aim of establishing a pretext for sending in troops.
Russia is calling on Ukraine to change its constitution to become a federalized state in which regions would have more control over their own affairs. Ukraine’s government has resisted federalization, saying that would lay the groundwork for the country’s breakup.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen Friday again urged Russia to pull back its troops from Ukraine’s borders and added NATO is taking legitimate steps to deal with the instability created by Russia’s “illegitimate” actions.
Speaking in Prague, Czech President Milos Zeman called on NATO and the European Union to take robust pre-emptive actions to deter Russia from invading other parts of Ukraine after its takeover of Crimea. He stopped short of giving details.
In a bid to apply pressure on Russia, the European Union has warned Moscow of further sanctions for ratcheting up tensions in Ukraine.
A senior European Union official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the 28-nation bloc’s foreign ministers would consider broadening the list of people sanctioned to deter Russia from further destabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine.
The person, who was briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said ministers at Monday’s meeting in Luxembourg aren’t expected to decide new sanctions but could agree on ordering the preparation of a new list of targets.
Nataliya Vasilyeva in Kiev, Ukraine, Jim Heintz in Moscow, Juergen Baetz in Brussels, Karel Janicek, in Prague, Czech Republic, and Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, contributed to this story.
