Kiev Govt. - defies Russian warning - threatens more attacks

[Reality Check]

Defying warnings from Moscow not to confront pro-Russian militants entrenched in towns across eastern Ukraine, the interim government on Friday threatened to maintain efforts to regain control by force that have so far produced little beyond Russian military drills on Ukraine’s border and heightened alarm about Moscow’s next move.

Sounding increasingly strident alarms, Ukraine’s interim prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, accused Moscow of seeking to create a wider conflict. “Attempts at military conflict in Ukraine will lead to a military conflict in Europe,” Mr. Yatsenyuk told the interim cabinet in remarks broadcast live, according to Reuters. “The world has not yet forgotten World War II, but Russia already wants to start World War III.”

In a posting on Facebook, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov declared that Ukraine’s military operations in the east — known as “ATO,” meaning Anti-Terrorist Operation — had not been suspended.

“There has been no suspension of the ATO in connection to the threat of invasion by Russia’s armed forces,” Mr. Avakov said, apparently responding to local news reports saying the operation had been called off because of the “heightened risk” of a Russian invasion. “The ATO goes on. The terrorists should be on their guard around the clock. Civilians have nothing to fear.”

Despite the minister’s warning, there have been no reports of renewed conflict since Ukrainian forces moved briefly against pro-Russian positions on Thursday in what Mr. Avakov, apparently playing down the action, described on Friday as an operation by “insignificant” government forces that had deployed “without the use of tanks or other heavy armor.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/world ... c=rss&_r=0