At least 42 people were killed in a street battle between supporters and opponents of Russia in southern Ukraine that ended with dozens of pro-Russian protesters incinerated in a burning building, bringing the country closer to war, according to the Associated Press.
Pro-Russian rebels in the east freed seven European military observers on Saturday after holding them hostage for eight days, while Kiev pressed on with its biggest military operation so far to reclaim rebel-held territory in the area, the AP reported.
The riot in the Black Sea port of Odessa, ending in a deadly blaze in a besieged trade union building, was by far the worst incident in Ukraine since a February uprising that ended with a pro-Russian president fleeing the country, according to the AP.
A couple of hundred pro-Russian protesters in the eastern city of Donetsk stormed the governor's business premises and the state security headquarters, ransacking files and smashing windows, the AP reported. The attack reflected growing disorder in the area, targeting as it did a security building that had already been brought under rebel control.
The Odessa clashes spread the violence from the eastern separatist heartland to an area far from the Russian frontier, raising the prospect of unrest sweeping more broadly across a country of around 45 million people the size of France, according to the AP.
The Kremlin has tens of thousands of soldiers on Ukraine's eastern border and proclaims the right to invade to protect Russian speakers, said the government in Kiev and its Western backers were responsible for the deaths, the AP reported.
Kiev said the violence was provoked by foreign demonstrators sent in from Transdniestria, a nearby breakaway pro-Russian region of Moldova where Moscow has a military garrison. It said most of the dead who had been identified so far were from there, according to the AP.
Events took a violent turn on Friday when a column of soccer supporters, chanting support for Ukraine's leaders, clashed with men in black, some firing pistols, the AP reported. Television pictures showed police caught between the two sides.
Clashes then spread along the streets until rebels moved into a large trade union building, according to the AP. Petrol bombs were thrown and shots were heard though the exact sequence and detail of events remained unclear on Saturday.
Oleg Konstantinov, a journalist covering the events for a local Internet site, said bullets had flown in the melee before the blaze: "I was hit in the arm, then I started crawling, and then got hit in the back and leg," the AP reported.
The Odessa bloodshed came on the same day that Kiev launched its biggest push yet to reassert its control over separatist areas in the east, hundreds of kilometers away, where armed pro-Russian rebels have proclaimed a "People's Republic of Donetsk," according to the AP.
The rebels there aim to hold a referendum on May 11 on secession from Ukraine, similar to one staged in March in Ukraine's Crimea region, which was seized and annexed by Russia in a move that overturned the post-Cold War diplomatic order, the AP reported.
