War, chaos engulf Eastern Ukraine

Slavyansk/Moscow: Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Russian rebels fought fierce battles on Saturday around a flashpoint town, with only a small reprieve to allow passage of a freed team of OSCE inspectors. More than 50 people have died in two days of clashes nationwide — most of them in a horrific inferno amid street clashes in the southern city of Odessa.

“There is gunfire and clashes around Kramatorsk ... What we are facing in the Donetsk region and in the eastern regions is not just some kind of short-lived uprising, it is in fact a war,” Vasyl Krutov, the head of Ukraine’s anti-terrorist centre , was quoted as saying by The Independent. In the east, the military stepped up its assault on rebels in the flashpoint town of Slavyansk on Saturday.

The bloodshed was plunging the international crisis over the ex-Soviet republic into dangerous new territory. Also, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said on Saturday that the Kremlin no longer had any influence over rebels in the east of the ex-Soviet country.

“From now on Russia essentially has lost its influence over these people because it will be impossible to convince them to lay down arms when there’s a direct threat to their lives,” Dimitry Peskov, Mr Putin’s spokesman, said. He also added that Moscow was unsure on how to tackle the escalating crisis in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia said it would now be “absurd” for the country — whose Crimea peninsula it annexed — to hold a planned May 25 Presidential election. “We do not und-erstand what polls in Kiev they are talking about in European capitals and Washington,” he said.

Kremlin weighs options as rebels run Berserk

The Kremlin is receiving “thousands” of calls for assistance from Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine, and it has not yet decided on a response, a spokesman said Saturday, as Ukrainian authorities continued to move to push back separatists who have taken over key cities and are running berserk in the region after Ukraine suffered its bloodiest day in nearly three months, The Washington Post reported.

The Kremlin’s announcement came after weeks of declarations from Russian officials that if Russian-speakers in restive eastern Ukraine came under threat, they would consider intervening in a conflict that has left several cities in the hands of pro-Russian separatists.

On Friday, nine people were killed when the Ukrainian Army launched its first major assault on a rebel stronghold and 34 died in clashes between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian mobs in the Black Sea port city of Odessa. “People are calling in despair, asking for help. The overwhelming majority demand Russian help,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on Saturday. “All these calls are reported to Vladimir Putin,” he added.

The Kremlin, however, has not yet decided how to respond, Peskov said. “This element is absolutely new to us,” he said, according to the Interfax.