Updated April 18, 2014 9:19 p.m. ET
Pro-Russian activists in eastern Ukraine said Friday they had no plans to vacate the government buildings they have occupied, despite the compromise agreement calling for that. Paul Sonne reports. Photo: Getty.
Pro-Russian activists in eastern Ukraine refused to vacate the government facilities they have occupied, defying a compromise agreement struck a day earlier by international powers, including Russia, that called on them to leave.
Denis Pushilin, the leader of the uprising that calls itself the People's Republic of Donetsk, said at a news conference in the southeast Ukrainian city's seized administration building that the activists wouldn't exit until the new leaders in Kiev leave the government, which he said they have been occupying unlawfully since late February.
"After that, we'll also agree to do it," Mr. Pushilin said. Instead, he said he and other activists in the building were continuing to prepare for a referendum on the southeast Ukraine region's future, which they intend to hold by May 11. We will defend our interests "until the last drop of blood if necessary" against the "Kiev junta," he said.
The activists' refusal seemed to undermine a deal reached Thursday in Geneva by Ukraine, Russia, the U.S. and the European Union, aimed at neutralizing a crisis that has plunged Ukraine into political and civil disarray and thrown Russia and the West into their deepest conflict since the end of the Soviet Union.
It also appeared to confirm dwindling hope by the new powers in Kiev that the joint statement released at the close of the Geneva negotiations would translate into substantive results. "We don't have any excessive expectations from this statement," Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told the country's parliament in Kiev on Friday, referring to the statement.
Late Friday, Mr. Yatsenyuk and acting President Oleksandr Turchynov announced what they said was a sweeping constitutional-reform plan aimed at addressing many of the concerns of their opponents in Ukraine's east, where many residents speak Russian and are wary of Kiev's new pro-Western leadership.
A pro-Russian activist stands guard Friday at the regional administration building in Donetsk. The uprising's leader said protesters won't leave until the new powers in Kiev resign. Getty Images
The plan calls for replacing appointed mayors and regional governors with officials elected locally and giving regional governments more power to determine how budget funds are spent. The plan would also allow towns, cities and regions to independently determine whether to make Russian an official language alongside Ukrainian. Language rights have been a central issue for protesters.
But hopes the reform plan would win parliamentary approval Friday fell short as Communist legislators, as well as those from the Party of Regions, which is particularly strong in the east and the party of deposed President Viktor Yanukovych, refused to back it. Messrs. Yatsenyuk and Turchynov said they hoped for passage soon.
Mr. Yatsenyuk said Ukraine's new government has prepared a draft law granting amnesty to any protesters on either side who give up their weapons and leave occupied buildings. In Kiev, pro-Western protesters who helped usher Mr. Yanukovych's ouster have continued to occupy the city's main Independence Square and some nearby buildings.
Kiev and its Western allies say Moscow has incited the separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine, a charge the Kremlin has denied. Western diplomats say they aren't optimistic that Russia will follow through and help force the militants to disarm and vacate the occupied buildings across eastern Ukraine. Russian officials say they have no influence over those protesters.
A demonstrator in Donetsk takes a soccer break at a barricade erected in front of the eastern Ukrainian city's seized administration building European Pressphoto Agency
Secretary of State John Kerry warned Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in a phone call on Friday that the U.S. would closely watch to see whether Moscow uses its influence to ensure that militant separatists in Ukraine vacate occupied buildings and put down their arms.
"He made clear that the next few days would be a pivotal period for all sides to implement the statement's provisions, particularly that all illegal armed groups must be disarmed and all illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners," the State Department said in a statement.
Mr. Kerry also called Mr. Yatsenyuk to praise Ukraine's government on steps it has taken to comply with the Geneva agreement.
Russia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement Friday evening saying it was disappointed with U.S. official responses to the Geneva deal and accused Washington of stubbornly supporting the Kiev government in what Moscow called its determination to use force against pro-Russian protesters in the east. The Foreign Ministry said the Geneva agreement's call on protesters to give up weapons and occupied buildings should apply first to those in Kiev, "who participated in the February coup."
Donetsk activist leader Mr. Pushilin began his news conference earlier Friday with a nearly identical comment. But he said Mr. Lavrov, who signed off on the statement on the Geneva agreement, "didn't sign anything for us, he signed on behalf of the Russian Federation." Mr. Pushilin said he isn't receiving any money from Russia.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has been tasked with assisting the effort to disarm the activists . But diplomats said the organization doesn't have the personnel on the ground in Ukraine to implement the disarmament effectively.
Mr. Pushilin denounced the new authorities in Kiev for sending in the Ukrainian military to try to control the situation in the country's east—an "antiterrorist" operation launched earlier this week that so far has yielded few results.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia said whether military action continues will depend on whether the activists respond to the demands articulated in Geneva.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he hoped not to send Russian troops into Ukraine but didn't rule it out, accusing the Kiev government of committing "a serious crime" by using the military to quell unrest. Paul Sonne reports. Photo: AP.
"As far as the antiterrorist operation goes, it is continuing and its intensity will depend on whether there is any real fulfillment of the [Geneva] agreement," Mr. Deshchytsia told the Interfax news agency. Ukrainian authorities have said they put the operation on hold for the duration of the Easter holidays.
The Kiev government and Western officials have said some of the armed men in unmarked uniforms aren't local residents but Russian special-forces troops who are leading the uprising, as they did in Crimea. Moscow and the protesters in eastern Ukraine deny that, describing the events as an independent uprising.
Anti-Kiev activists who continue to hold municipal and security buildings across cities in southeast Ukraine have shown no sign of retreat.
Gun-wielding men traveling in an armed personnel carrier with protest flags rolled into the village of Seversk on Friday and took down the Ukrainian flag on the city administration building before speeding away, according to photos, an official at the local information site and the police department spokeswoman.
When the Ukrainian military arrived in such armed personnel carriers during the "antiterrorist operation" earlier this week, a number of the vehicles ended up being seized by angry activists. Ukrainian authorities said Friday that they had recovered two of the six vehicles.
In the city of Slovyansk, a hotbed of anti-Kiev sentiment in Ukraine's east, protesters who have taken control of the city administration building announced Friday that the city's mayor, Nelya Shtepa, was in their custody. "She is currently with us," an activist announced outside the building, saying the activists had decided to protect her after she had given up power. It wasn't immediately clear whether she had been taken hostage or was, in fact, in the building.
Outside the city, unidentified masked men with automatic weapons took control of the main television transmission tower for the area on Thursday and turned off Ukrainian channels, leaving only state-controlled Russian news that was broadcasting snippets from an annual televised phone-in session by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine's central state broadcasting operation in Kiev responded by shutting off electricity to the facility early Friday, causing the armed men to leave, according to a top official from the state transmission operator, who said the tower services about a million people. The official said the men showed up again hours later with more than double the force and managed to hook up electricity from another source.
Pro-Russian protesters tie a banner on barricades placed in front of the seized office of the SBU state security service in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, on Friday. Reuters
Two masked men in green camouflage outfits, who stood outside the facility with automatic weapons on Friday, declined to discuss the situation or allow entrance to the television tower.
The news conference Friday in Donetsk, held by rebels who took control of the central regional administration building there on April 6 and proclaimed an independent "people's republic" the following day, showed the challenge Kiev faces in holding together Ukraine.
"To call us criminals and terrorists for occupying buildings, while calling the people in Kiev who have done the exact same thing heroes, is at the very least not right," Mr. Pushilin said. He echoed Mr. Putin's long-standing criticism that the West operates on a system of double standards when it comes to Russia.
Both Russian officials and activists in Ukraine's east have sought to present the recent seizure of buildings in the region as an equivalent response to the actions pro-Europe protesters took in Kiev in late 2013 and earlier this year.
The activists in Donetsk are demanding a referendum on the future of the largely Russian-speaking region, the home of the deposed Mr. Yanukovych, which has long had closer relations with Russia than much of the rest of Ukraine.
Pro-Russian protesters gather outside the seized City Hall in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Thursday. European Pressphoto Agency
But when pressed on Friday, neither Mr. Pushilin nor other leaders of the uprising could say what exact question they hope to pose on any referendum on the region's "self determination." Mr. Pushilin said it would be the question of the Donetsk region's "sovereignty." Asked if that meant the region would stay part of Ukraine, he said he wouldn't rule it out.
Alexander Khryakov, another leader in the uprising, said the question was being formulated by experts and leaders and couldn't be described yet. Mr. Khryakov said his personal preference is a return to the Soviet Union, which would make the region part of the same country as Russia.
Mr. Khryakov said that authorities in Brussels and Washington, with their support of Kiev, have wakened the "Russian bear." He said: "The Russian bear is us, who stand for the all the hopes of our people here."
—Olga Padorina and Jay Solomon contributed to this article.
Write to Paul Sonne at paul.sonne@wsj.com and Gregory L. White at greg.white@wsj.com
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