MOSCOW—Ukraine regained control overnight of the city council in the port city of Mariupol, as Kiev restarted a military operation to drive our pro-Russian militants who had taken over cities in the eastern part of the country, the Interior Minister said Thursday.
The relaunched operation follows warnings from Russia on Wednesday that it would consider any attack on Russian citizens there an attack on itself and would be forced to respond. The renewed action is among growing signs that an agreement reached last week in Geneva laying out steps to reduce the tension is falling apart.
President Barack Obama said during a visit to Tokyo that Russia hasn’t been abiding by the spirit or letter of the agreement, and he warned that the U.S. was prepared to impose additional sanctions.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said there were no casualties in the operation to take back the council building in the southeastern city, which had been under pro-Russian control since April 13. He said the city’s mayor had already returned to his office but police were checking the buildings for explosives.
“The process of normalizing the situation in the city is continuing,” he said.
But the local interior ministry in the Donetsk region where Mariupol is located said the clash initially involved a group of about 30 unknown people armed with bats who demanded the pro-Russian protesters leave the building. A fight then broke out, after which police arrived.
According to the local ministry statement, five people were hurt and required medical attention. The statement didn’t say whether the building had been cleared.
Mr. Avakov also reported that a group of 70 people he said were being led by Russian military officers attacked a military base in the city of Artemovsk in an effort to seize weapons. He said the attack was repulsed but that soldiers had been wounded.
It wasn’t immediately clear if there were casualties among the attackers, he said.
Officials in Kiev have repeatedly accused Russia of having agents operating on the ground in the east to foment unrest. Russia denies this, but has moved tens of thousands of troops to the Ukrainian border.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the U.S. and the European Union of having tried to organize another “color revolution” in Ukraine in the run-up to the ouster of former-President Viktor Yanukovych in February.
Several former-Soviet states underwent “color revolutions” between 2003-2005—including Ukraine’s Orange Revolution—in which waves of street protests led to new, more pro-Western governments taking charge.
The Russian-leaning Mr. Yanukovych was elected in 2010 after voters grew frustrated with squabbling among Ukraine’s West-leaning leaders. But anger grew after he rejected a cooperation agreement with the EU.
Russia has accused the West of supporting the pro-European protesters who took over Kiev’s main square and several government buildings for months before Mr. Yanukovych was driven from office.
“In Ukraine—let’s call a spade a spade—this was an attempt by the United States and the European Union to bring off another ‘color revolution,’ or unconstitutional regime change,” he said, according to Russian news agencies.
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