Pro-Russia Activists Proclaim Separatist Republic In East Ukraine City
One of the leaders of about 100 activists, who moved into the building on Sunday night, called for a referendum to be held no later than May 11 on the establishment of the "Donetsk people's republic".
Reading from a text, an unidentified, bearded man said protesters would call on Russia to send in a peacekeeping force in the event of aggressive action by what he described as the "illegitimate" authorities in Kiev.
The group's leaders later went on to the square in front of the building and read the same text by loud-hailer to a crowd of about 1,000, some of whom shouted: "Hurrah! Hurrah!".
Pro-Russia activists moved into public buildings in two other cities - Kharkiv and Luhansk - in the mainly Russian-speaking east of Ukraine on Sunday evening with similar demands for referendums to be held on their status.
Saying Russian troops were within a 30-km (19-mile) zone on the other side of the Ukrainian border, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk told an emergency government meeting on Monday that the action was part of a Russian-written script for seizing control of parts of Ukraine following the takeover of Crimea.
"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.
(Reporting by Lina Kushch in Donetsk and Pavel Polityuk in Kiev, Writing By Richard Balmforth, Editing by Timothy Heritage)