Ukraine Separatists Seize Another Local Government Headquarters; Two Points of View; EU Expands Sanc

Making it readily apparent that no one has any control over the separatists, nor can anyone speak for them, Separatists Seize Another Local Government HQ in Ukraine.

Hundreds of pro-Russian separatists seized the regional government headquarters in Luhansk on Tuesday, unopposed by police, underlining the lack of control of central government over swathes of eastern Ukraine.

Lines of riot police surrounded the back of the building, facing hundreds of men and women. At the front, dozens of men, some in green camouflage and holding shields, walked into the imposing, white building, while others smashed windows and raised the Russian tricolor.

The government in Kiev has all but lost control of its police forces in parts of eastern Ukraine since pro-Russian activists seized buildings in the region's second biggest city of Donetsk and several smaller towns.

In separatist-held Slaviansk, the self-declared mayor said he would discuss the release of detained military observers only if the European Union dropped sanctions against rebel leaders.

"The regional leadership does not control its police force," said Stanislav Rechynsky, an aide to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, referring to events in Luhansk where separatists had earlier only occupied the local security services' building.

"The local police did nothing."

He added that the ministry had information that they would next try to take the local television center.

Ukraine's authorities are struggling to find a way to evict the separatists, who also took a small town hall in Pervomaisk in the Luhansk region on Tuesday.

Separatists in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine's second biggest city, have said they will hold a referendum on independence for the Donbass region on May 11.

That would undermine government efforts to hold a non-binding consultative referendum across Ukraine on May 25 or June 15, when the country votes for the president, to gauge appetite for the decentralization of power.

Russia’s military chief and deputy prime minister are among 15 names the EU has added to the list of individuals it is imposing sanctions on, in a move that sparked sharp criticism from Moscow.

Russia’s foreign ministry said that the EU sanctions were “shameful” and claimed they would inflame the Ukraine crisis.

“If that is really how someone in Brussels hopes to stabilise the situation in Ukraine, it is clear evidence of a complete misunderstanding of the internal political situation in the country and a direct invitation to local neo-Nazis to continue producing lawlessness and extrajudicial retaliations against the peaceful population of the southeast,” the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.