Hundreds of pro-Russian demonstrators seized the regional radio and television center in Donetsk, a city in the like-named eastern Ukrainian region, on Sunday, media reports said.
The protesters broke into the communications center and raised the flag of the self-proclaimed "People's Republic of Donetsk."
The seizure of the radio and television center occurred after a rally in Donetsk city's Lenin Square to express support for the autonomy referendum called by pro-Russian groups for May 11.
Ukraine's interim government has declared the referendum illegal.
Video streamed over the Internet showed that the police officers guarding the regional radio and television center left the building without taking any action against the protesters.
"Donetsk is a Russian city!" and "Russia, Russia!" the protesters chanted.
The demonstrators secured the communications center and headed back to Lenin Square, which is next to the regional government offices seized by pro-Russian activists several weeks ago.
The European military officers detained by pro-Russian militias in Sloviansk, a southeastern city controlled by pro-Russian militants, said, meanwhile, that they were not captives.
"We are not prisoners, we are guests of Mayor (Viachelav) Ponomariov," German Col. Oberst Axel Schneider, one of the European military observers, told Russia's official RIA-Novosti news agency.
Schneider, however, said he did not know when the officers would be allowed to leave.
"We have been here several days in the hands of the mayor of this city," Schneider said.
Pro-Russian militants detained seven European military officers - three Germans, a Pole, a Dane, a Swede and a Czech - along with six other people on Friday.
The long-simmering tensions between pro-European western Ukraine and the country's eastern region, which has close ties to Russia, were exacerbated by the ouster in late February of President Viktor Yanukovych, a Kremlin ally.
Russia sent troops to the strategic region of Crimea following Yanukovych's removal from office.
Moscow subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula last month - a move the West considers illegitimate - after its mostly Russian-speaking population voted in a referendum to break off from Ukraine and rejoin Russia.
Moscow contends Yanukovych was removed from office on Feb. 22 by far-right Ukrainian nationalists and that it moved to protect ethnic Russians and Russian interests in Crimea following that development. EFE
The protesters broke into the communications center and raised the flag of the self-proclaimed "People's Republic of Donetsk."
The seizure of the radio and television center occurred after a rally in Donetsk city's Lenin Square to express support for the autonomy referendum called by pro-Russian groups for May 11.
Ukraine's interim government has declared the referendum illegal.
Video streamed over the Internet showed that the police officers guarding the regional radio and television center left the building without taking any action against the protesters.
"Donetsk is a Russian city!" and "Russia, Russia!" the protesters chanted.
The demonstrators secured the communications center and headed back to Lenin Square, which is next to the regional government offices seized by pro-Russian activists several weeks ago.
The European military officers detained by pro-Russian militias in Sloviansk, a southeastern city controlled by pro-Russian militants, said, meanwhile, that they were not captives.
"We are not prisoners, we are guests of Mayor (Viachelav) Ponomariov," German Col. Oberst Axel Schneider, one of the European military observers, told Russia's official RIA-Novosti news agency.
Schneider, however, said he did not know when the officers would be allowed to leave.
"We have been here several days in the hands of the mayor of this city," Schneider said.
Pro-Russian militants detained seven European military officers - three Germans, a Pole, a Dane, a Swede and a Czech - along with six other people on Friday.
The long-simmering tensions between pro-European western Ukraine and the country's eastern region, which has close ties to Russia, were exacerbated by the ouster in late February of President Viktor Yanukovych, a Kremlin ally.
Russia sent troops to the strategic region of Crimea following Yanukovych's removal from office.
Moscow subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula last month - a move the West considers illegitimate - after its mostly Russian-speaking population voted in a referendum to break off from Ukraine and rejoin Russia.
Moscow contends Yanukovych was removed from office on Feb. 22 by far-right Ukrainian nationalists and that it moved to protect ethnic Russians and Russian interests in Crimea following that development. EFE
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