KIEV, April 9 (RIA Novosti) – The situation in eastern Ukraine, where federalization supporters have been holding protests since Sunday, will soon be resolved either through dialogue with the demonstrators or by force, acting Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told journalists on Wednesday.
“I think the crisis will be resolved within the next 48 hours,” Avakov said. “We can at any moment carry out what we have planned. There are two possible developments for the situation: negotiations or the use of force.”
The minister's threat of force came in defiance of warnings by Moscow and international experts that a violent crackdown on the demonstrators, who are seeking increased local autonomy, risked escalating the crisis and plunging the country into a civil war.
Protesters have stepped up demonstrations in recent days in support of federalization across Ukraine’s eastern and southeastern regions, calling for Crimea-style referendums on the status of their regions within Ukraine.
On Monday, supporters of federalization declared the formation of independent “people’s republics” in the cities of Donetsk and Kharkiv.
Beginning last month, protests in eastern cities have been held each Sunday, with citizens refusing to accept their newly-appointed governors as legitimate, as they were installed by the organizers of a coup in the capital in February.
Foreign Secretary William Hague called on the EU Tuesday to toughen sanctions against Russia, saying the recent protests in southeastern Ukraine bore "all the hallmarks of a Russian strategy to destabilize Ukraine."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected similar claims by the US on Tuesday, warning the West against shifting the blame onto Russia for the ongoing political turmoil in the country, which Moscow insists is the result of actions by the country’s new authorities.
