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On Wednesday, pro-Russian forces lifted an armed siege on a regional police headquarters in Lugansk in Eastern Ukraine after the chief officer of the station agreed to resign. Meanwhile, The Ukrainian government said that its army is “on full combat alert” against a potential Russian invasion. Rebels already control the regional administration building and the SBU security services building.
A spokeswoman for the police said that the officers in the station refused to hand over their weapons to a group of 1,000 pro-Russian insurgents, led by about 30 men carrying assault rifles and grenade launchers who had attempted to seize the building overnight. “The chief inspector has resigned. We are awaiting the appointment of his successor. In the meantime, the Lugansk police is functioning normally — well, as normal as could be expected under the circumstances”, she said.
The police headquarters was the scene of a strained situation between the police and the protestors late on Tuesday, with the police barricading off the inside of the building. The protestors tried to break down the headquarters’ metal door, with the police responding by volleys of stun grenades and tear gas. Around 30 police conscripts were sent out of the building, moving through a hostile crowd onto buses waiting for them; their superior officers were kept inside the building.
The Western-backed Ukrainian government has voiced its exasperation at what the interim Presidents called “inaction” and “treachery” of the police, which has at times watched nonchalantly as violence raged on. Many policemen in eastern Ukraine have done very little to stop the rebels seizing public buildings in the region, with some of them even sympathising with the pro-Russian cause. The Ukrainian government had urged civilian volunteers to join the territorial brigades to help support the police force, but so far have not received any such backing.
Earlier in the day, Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said that the military is “on full combat alert” against any possible invasion by Russian forces currently amassed on the border. In a ministerial meeting in Kiev, Turchynov said “Our armed forces are on full combat alert. The threat of Russia starting a war against mainland Ukraine is real.”
