Russia would send troops to protect its citizens in Ukraine

Russia warned Wednesday that it would send troops to Ukraine if its citizens come under attack there.

“Russian citizens being attacked is an attack against the Russian Federation,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state-run television channel RT.

Lavrov said Russia would defend the interests of Russians from attack as it did in 2008 when Moscow sent soldiers into Georgia to repel Georgian government troops from the Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia.

He stressed that Russian troops currently deployed at the border have not crossed into Ukraine and remain on Russian territory.

Lavrov also accused the Ukrainian government of being under US tutelage.

“There is no reason not to believe that the Americans are running the show,” he said.

As evidence, Lavrov pointed to an order by interim Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov to resume military operations against separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, where the country’s ethnic Russian minority is concentrated.

Lavrov argued that the operation was launched last week, immediately after CIA Director John Brennan visited the pro-Western government in Kiev.

“Ukraine is just one manifestation of the American unwillingness to yield in the geopolitical fight,” Lavrov said, adding that Washington’s “ready-made solutions” cannot remedy a crisis that it does not understand.

However, Turchynov said the resumption of the “anti-terrorist” operation was prompted by the killing of a local deputy allegedly by pro-Russian militants.

The body of Volodymyr Rybak was found Tuesday near Sloviansk, a city in the Donetsk region that has been at the centre of pro-Russian protests.

Turchynov said Rybak, a city council member of nearby Horlivka, had been kidnapped and tortured. He blamed local pro-Russian militants, whom he called “terrorists” and said have taken the whole region hostage.

“These crimes are done with the full support and connivance of the Russian Federation,” Turchynov said.

The Ukrainian Security Service said the militant separatists who control Sloviansk were to blame for Rybak’s killing.

The Ukrainian government said Wednesday that Turchynov’s order was being carried out.

Law enforcement agencies are working to dissolve all militant formations active in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaliy Yarema told reporters in Kiev, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reported.

Yarema added, however, that officers had not taken any action during the night.

Solviansk militants are also suspected to have detained Simon Ostrovsky, a US-Israeli video journalist who has been filming in Ukraine in recent months.

Ostrovsky, who works for the US website Vice News, disappeared Monday after attending a press conference of the city’s self-declared pro-Russian mayor.

Vice News said it was in contact with US authorities to try to ensure Ostrovsky’s safety.

The European Union said Wednesday that while Ukraine has the right to defend its sovereignty, it should refrain from violence.

“We have full confidence in the Ukrainian government to further implement the terms of the Geneva agreement as soon as possible, and we call on all parties to do the same in good faith,” said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.