Ukraine - Continuing unrest in eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions

With news crews going missing, the Eastern region of the Ukraine is becoming more dangerous day by day for foreigners. RPS has learned today that film crews from the Sky News and CBS TV channels have gone missing in the Donetsk Region.

Clarissa Ward, Erin Lyall, Andy Stevenson, Geoff Mabberley are among the missing journalists as well as another US journalist and his interpreter also going missing today. 

Violent unrest continues to be reported in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, notably in the region's capital where a rally to mark International Workers' Day turned violent yesterday.

Several hundred participants clashed with riot police before occupying the state prosecutor's office, one of many government buildings now occupied by pro-Russia activists in Donetsk, as well as more than a dozen locations elsewhere in the region.

National authorities are struggling to exercise effective control in Donetsk and the neighbouring region of Luhansk, where activists have called for a referendum on the status of the regions to be held on 11 May, prior to general elections scheduled for 25 May.

Ukraine's interim president, Oleksandr Turchynov, has reportedly ordered that police chiefs in the regional capitals be replaced, amid claims that orders issued by the central government are being disregarded.

RPS can report on a different note that Ukrainian armed forces are believed to have launched a special operation in Sloviansk today; the city has effectively been under the control of pro-Russia militia for several weeks, despite a coordinated security operation launched in the region on 15 April.

Seven foreign observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), who were seized by pro-Russia militia in Sloviansk on 25 April, continue to be detained amid ongoing negotiations for their release.

RPS can advise that Eastern Ukraine will remain insecure in the near future and the threat of further civil unrest and/or armed confrontations remains high, particularly in the Donetsk region. Well-attended pro-Russia rallies have taken place in Donetsk, Luhansk and other urban centres in eastern Ukraine on successive Sundays in recent weeks; similar gatherings are likely on 4 May.

RPS currently advises against all non-essential travel to the eastern regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk due to increasing instability, civil unrest and the potential for a rapid deterioration in the security environment in the respective regions.

For more information please contact [email protected]. RPS has a consultant on the ground in the region and can provide timely advice and information.

Source: UNIAN news agency, Kiev, BBC Monitoring and Red24

Image courtesy of rt.com