DHAKA: Kalashnikov-wielding gunmen on Saturday seized a police station and a security building in Ukraine’s restive eastern industrial heartland amid spreading protests to press for the heavily Russified region to join Kremlin rule.

The coordinated attacks and a failed assault on the prosecutor’s office in the local capital Donetsk underscored the volatility of the crisis ahead of peace talks between EU and US diplomats and their Moscow and Kiev counterparts in Geneva on Thursday.

Ukraine’s interim leaders have been facing unceasing pressure from Russia since their February ouster of an unpopular Kremlin-backed president and decision to seek closer ties with the West.

Moscow has massed tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine’s eastern border after annexing its Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and nearly doubled the rates it charges Kiev for gas, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 2016 HRS, APR 12, 2014