Pro-Kremlin Militias Ignore Ukraine Ultimatum

Ukraine's latest ultimatum to pro-Kremlin militias who have seized buildings across a swath of the separatist east expired on Monday without any sign of the gunmen ready to give in.

The streets of the impoverished coal mining town of Slavyansk remained deserted and silent despite the Western-backed interim president's vow to unleash a "full-scale anti-terrorist operation" involving the army should the gunmen not give up the local police station and state security office by 0600 GMT.

Saturday's raids in the town and the dual threat posed by Russia's deployment of 40,000 troops on Ukraine's border and warning of a possible gas cutoff has left Kiev's untested leaders desperately seeking Western help in averting a further dismemberment of their crisis-hit ex-Soviet state.

EU foreign ministers -- their capitals bracing for what might be the third halt in Russian gas supplies since 2006 -- gathered in Luxemburg to discuss whether to pursue a third and most punishing-yet round of economic sanctions against Moscow.

Both Kiev's ultimatum and the Western chorus charging that the Kremlin was directly involved in the coordinated raids across Ukraine's heavily Russified rust belt led Moscow to call an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, where the charged atmosphere echoed diplomatic battles waged at the height of the Cold War.

Moscow's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin said in a prepared statement that "the international community must demand the stooges of Maidan stop the war against their own people."

Maidan refers to the barricade-scarred protest square in Kiev that witnessed dozens of deaths during months of protests that toppled an unpopular Russian-backed leader in February and brought to power a team seeking an alliance with the European Union but denounced as illegitimate by Moscow.

Churkin dismissed U.S. charges of Russian agents' involvement in the latest unrest and accused the West of supporting "radicalized, chauvinistic, Russophobic, anti-Semitic forces" in Kiev.

But Russia found itself isolated in a manner similar to a U.N. session at which Moscow was forced to veto a nearly-unanimously backed Security Council resolution condemning its seizure and annexation of Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea last month.

"This is the saddest kind of instability. It is completely man made. It was written and choreographed in and by Russia," U.S. ambassador Samantha Power told the 15-member council.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen appeared to sum up the state of the West's current relations with the Kremlin by writing in an editorial published in European papers: "Today, Russia is speaking and behaving not as a partner, but as an adversary."

Saturday's attacks were especially unsettling for both Kiev and Western leaders because of their remarkable similarity to events leading up to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.

The balaclava-clad gunmen were armed with special-issue assault rifles and scopes most often used by nations' crack security troops.

Many wore unmarked camouflage uniforms similar to those seen on the highly trained units that seized the Black Sea peninsula in early March. They also moved with military precision and cohesion.

Ukraine's acting president Oleksandr Turchynov on Monday accused Russia of "waging naked aggression against our country."

Turchynov had warned on Sunday evening that he would launch a "full-scale" assault against the militants if they failed to give up by Monday morning.

AFP reporters across the eastern Donetsk region saw no signs of a Ukrainian offensive.

But Donetsk Governor Sergiy Taruta told local residents in an official statement that the army operation had begun.

The army's counteroffensive "is aimed at protecting peace and order on our land, which is being taken from us cynically and in cold blood by armed, aggressive, fanatical people," the Donetsk governor said.

"They are terrorists and we will not allow them to lord over our land."

The Donetsk protesters heavily fortified the building and announced the independence of the "Donetsk People's Republic" -- the flag of which has gone up over newly seized security buildings across the region.

Pro-Russian protesters in the region fear a loss of their rights to speak Russian and the collapse of an already depressed economy if their government cuts ties with their close and historical ally Moscow.

A charm offensive by embattled Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk -- who promised during a visit on Friday to grant more powers to the country's regions and protect the east's right to use the Russian language -- was seen by many as insufficient and coming much too late.

But many of the pro-Russian protests have only drawn crowds of a few hundred and local opinion polls showed the majority of citizens in the Russian-speaking east preferred to remain part of Ukraine.