BBC Online :
Commandos have moved on the separatist stronghold of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine days after a new “anti-terrorist” operation was announced.
A number of casualties were reported among the separatists as the commandos, backed by armour, cleared barricades near the town.
Separatists are occupying key buildings in at least a dozen eastern towns.
It appears that pro-government forces have regained control of the city hall in another eastern town, Mariupol.
In another development, the funeral is taking place of a pro-Ukrainian politician, Volodymyr Rybak, who was abducted and killed in Donetsk region.
The body of Volodymyr Rybak lay in an open coffin in the yard of his house.
Friends and relatives of the murdered town councillor stood nearby listening to an Orthodox Christian priest chanting prayers.
Rybak had been a vocal critic of pro-Russia separatists and a firm supporter of a united Ukraine. It was his abduction and murder which prompted Kiev this week to resume military operations against armed separatists in the east of the country.
The atmosphere here in Horlivka is not only one of shock, but deep pessimism. When he arrived at the funeral service, an official from the local town council told me he feared “something terrible would happen” to Ukraine in the next three weeks.
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama has accused Russia of flouting a deal on Ukraine reached in Geneva last week, under which illegal armed groups, including those who have seized public buildings, would return home.
Obama told a news conference in Japan that Moscow had failed to halt actions by militants in the region and warned that the US had further sanctions against Russia “teed up”.
A contingent of US troops has begun landing in Poland for military exercises amid concerns among Nato’s eastern members about Russian intentions.
Moscow has said it will respond to any attack on its interests in Ukraine.
Unrest began in Ukraine last November over whether the country should look towards Moscow or the West.
One roadblock near Sloviansk, in Donetsk region, could be seen on fire amid reports that separatists had abandoned it when Ukrainian soldiers approached.
As many as five separatists were killed, according to Ukraine’s interior ministry. An aide to Sloviansk’s self-appointed mayor said two people had died.
An initial operation against the separatists on 16 April became bogged down in Sloviansk, where Ukrainian soldiers abandoned their troop carriers to protesters.
Elsewhere, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the city hall in Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov in the Donetsk region, had been “liberated” overnight, although there was no independent confirmation. “Civic activists” played a major part in the operation, he said.
