David Cameron breaks from holiday for emergency Ukraine talks

David Cameron today interrupted his Easter holiday to hold emergency talks with European leaders on the deepening crisis in Ukraine.

The Prime Minister telephoned German Chancellor Angela Merkel from Lanzarote as Ukraine braced itself for more violent clashes. Mr Cameron was also expected to speak to France’s President Hollande after the Ukrainian government warned of a “large scale” military strike to thwart pro-Russian separatists.

The Kiev government had set a 7am deadline for them to lay down their weapons but, as it passed, armed men could still be seen at barricades in eastern Ukraine. It followed a gun fight yesterday which killed a Ukrainian security services captain and wounded five others.

As tensions soared this morning the US, Britain and Ukraine traded accusations with Russia at the UN, while world stock markets dropped. European foreign ministers also planned a meeting raising the prospect of further sanctions on Moscow, accused by the West of fermenting unrest in eastern Ukrainian cities and towns.

Pro-Russian fighters in balaclavas and carrying rifles took up positions over the weekend. Ukraine’s President Oleksandr Turchynov promised an amnesty for anyone laying down arms this morning but warned in a televised address: “The [Ukrainian] Security Council has made a decision to begin a large-scale anti-terrorist operation with participation of army forces. We’re not going to allow Russia to repeat the Crimea scenario in Ukraine’s east.”

Last week separatists took control of buildings in three major eastern cities, with unrest then spreading to smaller towns in the last few days. Slovynsk was today completely surrounded by rebel barricades with checkpoints manned by pro-Russian fighters.

At the UN in New York, assistant secretary-general Oscar Fernandez-Taranco told Security Council members that “Ukraine teeters on the brink”. With Russia now having massed 40,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, US ambassador Samantha Power accused the Kremlin of stirring the unrest in its neighbour’s towns.

She said: “The fact is that many of the armed units that we’ve seen were outfitted in bullet-proof vests, camouflage uniforms with insignia removed.

“These armed units... raised Russian and separatist flags over seized buildings and have called referendums and union with Russia. We know who is behind this.” A Foreign Office spokesman called the occupations by pro-Russian fighters a “dangerous escalation”. He added: “Assumptions that Russia is complicit are inevitable as long as Moscow does not publicly distance itself from these latest lawless actions.”

Ukrainian analyst Dmitry Tymchuk today claimed Russia had been secretly building a network of agents over the last four years. The head of Kiev’s Centre for Military and Political Research also claimed that some men seen co-ordinating unrest in eastern Ukraine were also seen in Crimea before the Russian occupation.