DHAKA: Ukraine’s acting president Olexander Turchynov has admitted his forces are ‘helpless’ to quell unrest driven by pro-Russian activists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Turchynov said the goal was now to prevent the unrest spreading.

Activists have seized scores of government buildings and taken hostages including international monitors.

Turchynov also said Ukraine was on ‘full combat alert’, amid fears Russian troops could invade.

‘I would like to say frankly that at the moment the security structures are unable to swiftly take the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions back under control,’ he said during a meeting with regional governors.

He admitted security personnel ‘tasked with the protection of citizens’ were ‘helpless’.

‘More than that, some of these units either aid or co-operate with terrorist groups,’ he said, reports the BBC.

Turchynov added, ‘Our task is to stop the spread of the terrorist threat first of all in the Kharkiv and Odessa regions’.

BDST: 1927 HRS, APR 30, 2014