There is more trouble in eastern Ukraine this morning, where pro-Russian separatists have seized a police building in yet another city near the Russian border.  They’re defying Ukrainian government warnings of a large scale anti-terrorism operation against the insurgents today.  Dozens of angry men hurled rocks, smashed windows and broke into a police station in the city of Horlivka, not far from the border with Russia.  Meantime, the Interfax news agency is reporting that an anti-terrorist operation is underway in the Donetsk region.

Western diplomats took Russia to task yesterday during a United Nations Security Council hearing on rising tensions in eastern Ukraine. Russia accuses Ukraine’s new government of stirring anti-Russia sentiments in the region. But, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U-N, Yuriy Sergeyev, placed the blame on Russia.  “The blood of Ukrainians has been shared for one and undivided sovereign Ukraine,” Sergeyev explained, “This blood has been shed in a war that Russia is waging against Ukraine.”

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power also charges that Russia is behind the insurgency.
“Indeed the only entity in the area capable of these coordinated professional military actions is Russia.  The synchronized surgical seizure of the buildings yesterday (Saturday) occurred in towns along the main highway followed by armed roadblocks, almost as if a coordinated barrier was being formed between Kyiv and the major eastern cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.”

Russia’s U.N. ambassador says he’s alarmed by Ukraine’s announcement that it will deploy armed forces to quash an increasingly bold pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

During an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council in New York last night, Vitaly Churkin denied claims that Moscow is behind the escalating violence.