Right-Wing Mobs Take To Arms In Ukraine

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As well as Lviv, the occupation of government buildings by anti-government activists and confrontations with police were reported yesterday in the western cities of Ivano-Frankivsk, Lutsk, Rovno and Ternopil.

In Ternopil, about 300 fascists stormed the regional administration building and set fire to a local police precinct, torching police vehicles and forcing officers exiting from police buildings to kneel in the streets.

Meanwhile, the offices of the Batkivshchyna and Svoboda political parties, which have played a key role in organising the right-wing uprising in Kiev, were attacked with Molotov cocktails overnight in the Crimean city of Cherson.

The office of Svoboda, the most overtly right-wing nationalist of Ukraine’s opposition parties, was firebombed in the eastern city of Kharkiv.

The Higher Council of the Crimea, a southern region of the country on the Black Sea, issued a statement on Wednesday calling on President Yanukovych to take decisive steps to bring the situation under control.

‘We demand that you, as head of state, take concerted action and extreme measures. This is expected by hundreds of thousands of people in the Crimea that voted for you in the presidential elections.’

With the Kiev metro system shut and entry into the capital city restricted, communication links in other parts of the country also appeared to be breaking down.

In Kiev 25 people have been killed in the fighting, including ten police officers shot dead by right-wing gunmen.