DONETSK/KIEV, Ukraine Pro-Russian protesters seized state buildings in three east Ukrainian cities on Sunday, triggering accusations from the pro-European government in Kiev that President Vladimir Putin was orchestrating "separatist disorder". 
 
 The protesters stormed regional government buildings in the industrial hub of Donetsk and security service offices in nearby Luhansk, waving Russian flags and demanding a Crimea-style referendum on joining Russia. 
 
 Protesters also later seized the regional administrative building in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, Interfax news agency reported. All three cities lie close to Ukraine's border with Russia. 
 
 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov vowed to restore order in eastern Ukraine without using violence and also accused Ukraine's ousted president Viktor Yanukovich, whose political base was in Donetsk, of conspiring with Putin to fuel tensions. 
 
 "Putin and Yanukovich ordered and paid for the latest wave of separatist disorder in the east of the country. The people who have gathered are not many but they are very aggressive," Avakov said in a statement on his Facebook page. 
 
 "The situation will come back under control without bloodshed. That is the order to law enforcement officers, it's true. But the truth is that no one will peacefully tolerate the lawlessness of provocateurs." 
 
 Acting President Oleksander Turchinov called an emergency meeting of security chiefs in Kiev and took personal control of the situation, the parliamentary press service said. 
 
 Mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine has seen a sharp rise in tensions since Yanukovich's overthrow in February and the advent of an interim government in Kiev that backs closer ties with the European Union. 
 
 Russia has branded the new government illegitimate and has annexed Ukraine's Crimea region, citing threats to its Russian-speaking majority - a move that has sparked the biggest standoff between Moscow and the West since the end of the Cold War. 
 
 REFERENDUM DEMAND 
 
 Around 1,500 people protested in Donetsk on Sunday before breaking into the regional administration building, where they hung a Russian flag from a second-floor balcony, a Reuters witness said. Protesters outside cheered and chanted "Russia! Russia!". 
 
 In the Luhansk protest, Ukrainian television said three people had been injured. Police could not confirm the report. 
 
 Talking to the crowd over a loudspeaker, protest leaders in Donetsk said they wanted regional lawmakers to convene an emergency meeting to discuss a vote on joining Russia like the one in Ukraine's Crimea region that led to its annexation. 
 
 "Deputies of the regional council should convene before midnight and take the decision to carry out a referendum," one of the protest leaders said, without identifying himself. 
 
 A local Internet portal streamed footage from the seized building, showing people entering and exiting freely. Soviet-era music was being played over loudspeakers outside. 
 
 The building houses the offices of Serhiy Taruta, a steel baron recently appointed by the interim government in Kiev as governor of a region with close economic and historical ties to Russia. 
 
 "Around 1,000 people took part (in the storming of the building), mostly young people with their faces covered," said Ihor Dyomin, a spokesman for Donetsk local police. 
 
 "Around 100 people are now inside the building and are barricading the building," he added. 
 
 In Luhansk, Reuters television showed images of hundreds of people outside the state security services building and a policeman in riot armor being carried away on a stretcher. 
 
 Ukrainian television said the Luhansk protesters were demanding the release of people detained by security services in recent days as well as a referendum on joining Russia. 
 
 "We don't want to join the EU, we don't want to join NATO. We want our children to live in peace," an unnamed woman told Ukraine's Channel Five in Luhansk. 
 
 Ukraine's state security services said on Saturday they had detained 15 people in Luhansk suspected of planning to overthrow the authorities and had confiscated hundreds of rifles, grenades and petrol bombs. 
 
 Pro-Russian demonstrators have held rallies in recent weeks in several eastern Ukrainian cities, not far from a border where Moscow has assembled tens of thousands of troops. 
 
 (Writing by Thomas Grove; Editing by Gareth Jones) ||||| KIEV (Reuters) - Protests in eastern Ukraine in which pro-Russian activists seized public buildings in three cities are part of a plan to destabilize Ukraine and bring in Russian troops, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Monday. 
 
 Saying Russian troops were within a 30 km (19 mile) zone from the Ukrainian border, Yatseniuk told a government meeting: “An anti-Ukrainian plan is being put into operation ... under which foreign troops will cross the border and seize the territory of the country. 
 
 “We will not allow this,” he said. 
 
 Pro-Russian protesters in the east seized official buildings in three cities - Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk - on Sunday night, demanding that referendums be held on whether to join Russia. 
 
 A similar move preceded a Russia-backed takeover of Crimea in March followed by annexation of the peninsula by Russia. 
 
 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Monday the main regional administration building in Kharkiv had been cleared of “separatists”. 
 
 But police said protesters occupying the state security building in Luhansk had seized weapons and highway police had closed off roads into the city. 
 
 “Unknown people who are in the building have broken into the building’s arsenal and have seized weapons,” a police statement said. Nine people had been hurt in the disturbances in Luhansk. 
 
 Mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine has seen a sharp rise in tension since Moscow-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich’s overthrow in February and the advent of an interim government in Kiev that wants closer ties with Europe. 
 
 Russia has branded the new leadership in Kiev illegitimate and has annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region, citing threats to its Russian-speaking majority - a move that caused the biggest standoff between Moscow and the West since the end of the Cold War. 
 
 YANUKOVICH CALL 
 
 The protesters appeared to be responding in part to Yanukovich, who fled to Russia after he was ousted and who on March 28 issued a public call for each of Ukraine’s regions to hold a referendum on its status inside the country. 
 
 A pro-Russian protester stands inside the seized regional administrative building in Kharkiv April 6, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer 
 
 Separately, Ukraine’s defense ministry said a Russian marine had shot and killed a Ukrainian naval officer in Crimea on Sunday night. 
 
 The 33-year-old officer, who was preparing to leave Crimea, was shot twice in officers’ quarters in the locality of Novofedorovka. It was not clear why the Russian marine had opened fire. 
 
 Yatseniuk said that though much of the unrest had died down in eastern Ukraine in the past month there remained about 1,500 “radicals” in each region who spoke with “clear Russian accents” and whose activity was being coordinated through foreign intelligence services. 
 
 But he said Ukrainian authorities had drawn up a plan to handle the crisis. 
 
 “We have a clear action plan,” he said, adding that senior officials would head to the towns concerned. 
 
 Avakov on Sunday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating the “separatist disorder” and promised that disturbances would be brought under control without violence. 
 
 Russia has been pushing internationally a plan proposing the “federalization” of Ukraine in which regions of the country of 46 million would have broad powers of autonomy. 
 
 Slideshow (9 Images) 
 
 Ukraine, while drawing up its own blueprint of constitutional changes for ‘de-centralization’ in which smaller municipalities would be able to develop their own areas by retaining a portion of state taxes raised, says the Russian plan is aimed at breaking up the country. 
 
 Referring to the Russian plan, Yatseniuk said: “It is an attempt to destroy Ukrainian statehood, a script which has been written in the Russian Federation, the aim of which is to divide and destroy Ukraine and turn part of Ukraine into a slave territory under the dictatorship of Russia,” he said. 
 
 “This is not going to happen,” he said. 
 
 “I appeal to the people and the elites of the east. Our common responsibility is to preserve the country and I am sure that no-one wants to be under a neighboring country. We have our country. Let’s keep it,” he said. ||||| KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Pro-Russian separatists who seized a provincial administration building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Monday proclaimed the region an independent republic in a move echoing the run-up to Russia's annexation of Crimea. 
 
 Pro-Russian activists with Russian national flags storm the Ukrainian regional office of the Security Service in Luhansk, Ukraine, Sunday, April 6, 2014. In Luhansk, 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of the... (Associated Press) 
 
 The Interfax news agency said the activists demanded that a referendum be held no later than May 11 on the breaking away of the Donetsk region, which borders Russia. 
 
 In footage uploaded to the Internet, an unidentified pro-Russia activist in the provincial government headquarters in Donetsk asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to send peacekeeping troops to the region. 
 
 "Without your support, without the support of Russia, it will be hard for us to resist the Kiev junta on our own," he said, referring to the interim authorities that took power after the overthrow of Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovych in February. 
 
 Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk earlier in the day accused Russia of being behind the unrest that broke out in the country's eastern provinces Sunday and of seeking to sow instability as a pretext for dispatching troops across the border. 
 
 "The plan is to destabilize the situation, the plan is for foreign troops to cross the border and seize the country's territory, which we will not allow," he said, adding that people engaged in the unrest have distinct Russian accents. 
 
 Yatsenyuk said Russian troops remain stationed within 30 kilometers (19 miles) of the frontier. 
 
 Eastern Ukraine was the heartland of support for Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in February after months of protests. About half of the region's residents are ethnic Russians, many of whom believe Ukraine's acting authorities are Ukrainian nationalists who will oppress Russians. Ukraine's interim authorities deny they are infringing the rights of the ethnic Russian population. 
 
 Since Crimea held a secession referendum and then was annexed by Russia in March, calls for similar votes in Ukraine's east have emerged. ||||| Gallery 12 photo Gallery © EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY Situation in Donetsk 
 
 KIEV, April 7. /ITAR-TASS/. The council of recently proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic turned to the Russian president, asking him to introduce a temporary peacekeeping contingent. 
 
 The lawmakers unanimously supported the address of the Republican Council of the Donetsk People’s Republic. 
 
 Earlier, the deputies of the Donetsk regional council proclaimed the state sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic. The corresponding bill was read at the council’s session. 
 
 “The territory of the republic within the recognized borders is indivisible and inviolable,” the council said. The legislators also passed a decision on holding a referendum on whether or not the region should join the Russian Federation. It will be held no later than May 11. 
 
 On this background, residents of the city of Donetsk were holding an action of protest in front of the building of the Regional State Administration. The gathering was chanting ‘Russia, Russia!’ and waving the Russian flags. 
 
 In the meantime, a Russian tricolor that was hoisted on a mast in front of the building Sunday has been replaced with a larger one. 
 
 Mass meetings in support of Ukraine’s transformation into a federation were held under Russian flags in Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk Sunday. 
 
 The Russian tricolor standard was installed on the building of the Kharkiv Region administration Monday. Prior to the action, the demonstrators removed the Ukrainian national flag from the roof. 
 
 In Donetsk, the protesters seized the building of the regional administration and the regional branch of Ukraine’s Security Service. 
 
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 On Monday, supporters of turning the country into a federation put up barricades in front of the entrance to the Kharkiv Region administration. They used automobile tires among other ‘construction materials’. 
 
 In Luhansk, unidentified people who had entrenched themselves in the building of the Security Service’s regional branch seized the room where service guns were kept. 
 
 On using Russian Armed Forces on the territory of Ukraine 
 
 March 1, 2014, Russia’s Federation Council gave its consent to the president for using the armed forces on the territory of Ukraine. The relevant decision was unanimously adopted by the upper house of Russian parliament at an extraordinary session. Earlier, Vladimir Putin submitted to the Federation Council an address on using the armed forces of Russia on the territory of Ukraine until the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country. This initiative was proposed with regard to a plea by Ukraine’s legitimate president Viktor Yanukovych. 
 
 Later the Ukrainian leader said that the address to Vladimir Putin regarding the use of armed forces was triggered by the bout of armed delinquency in Ukraine. “I’ve done it for a reason, because I became target of the criminals. Armed gangs started to cruise around the country. In particular, they pursued me on the territory of Ukraine,” he said. ||||| MOSCOW — Under the attentive eye of Russian state television, several hundred pro-Russian demonstrators in the city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, declared on Monday that they were forming an independent republic and urged President Vladimir V. Putin to send troops to the region as a peacekeeping force, even though there was no imminent threat to peace. 
 
 The actions in Donetsk and two other main cities in eastern Ukraine, which included demands for a referendum on seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia, seemed an effort by the activists to mimic some of the events that preceded Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea. However, there were no immediate indications that the Kremlin was receptive to the pleas. 
 
 While widely regarded as political theater supported if not directed by the Kremlin, the protests could help promote what analysts say is Russia’s primary goal of destabilizing the shaky government in Kiev, preventing it from drifting further into the West’s orbit and giving Moscow leverage over the country’s future ahead of presidential elections in May. 
 
 The turmoil in eastern Ukraine also makes it extremely difficult for the provisional government in Kiev to begin putting in place an array of austerity measures and financial overhauls required by the International Monetary Fund as a condition for an $18 billion loan package that the country desperately needs to avert a financial default.
– Crimea first, eastern Ukraine next? Pro-Russia protesters last night seized government buildings in the cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Donetsk in Ukraine's largely Russian-speaking east, waving Russian flags and demanding a referendum on joining Russia, reports Reuters. In Donetsk, separatists have dubbed the region an independent republic, and have called for the sovereignty referendum to be held by May 11, the AP reports, noting that Crimea did much the same before Russia annexed it. These self-proclaimed lawmakers have also asked Vladimir Putin to send peacekeeping troops, according to Russia's state-run ITAR-Tass news agency. Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov has canceled a trip abroad to deal with the unrest, and the country's interior minister, who blames the protests on Vladimir Putin and ousted Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich, says the turmoil will be dealt with non-violently. He added that "separatists" had been removed from one building in Kharkiv as of today. More: Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk today emphasized those Russian fears, saying that country's troops were roughly 20 miles from the border and asserting that "an anti-Ukrainian plan is being put into operation ... under which foreign troops will cross the border and seize the territory of the country." Reuters reports that in Luhansk, protesters occupying the state security building have reportedly taken hold of weapons. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that a Ukrainian military officer in Crimea was last night killed by a Russian soldier who fired an automatic weapon at the unarmed man. The death apparently resulted from a confrontation between a number of Ukrainian and Russian troops, and occurred in a military dorm. Some Ukrainian military personnel remain in Crimea to facilitate the transition, notes the Times.