Pro-Russian terrorists wreak havoc in Donetsk Oblast

Pro-Russian terrorists continued to wreak havoc in the Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine on Tuesday, April 23. They shot up a plane belonging to the Ukraine Air Force, reported the Defense Ministry. The terrorists kidnapped a Sloviansk police officer, American journalist Simon Ostrovsky of vice.com, and continued to hold hostage a Kramatorsk police colonel, Vitaliy Kolupay. They ignored a request to release him from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), instead offering to exchange him for arms from the Internal Affairs Ministry. The ministry also confirmed on April 23 that the pro-Russian terrorists were responsible for the murder of Volodymyr Rybak, a Horlivka city council member who belonged to the pro-EU Fatherland party. Rybak led the local “For a United Ukraine” protests. His body was among two corpses found with signs of torture.

Zenon Zawada: With such actions, the pro-Russian fighters can no longer be considered protesters or activists, but are behaving like terrorists. Unlike the EuroMaidan, which was a nonviolent protest that resorted to violence as a last resort (because the politicians failed them), those involved in the Donetsk Oblast rebellions have resorted to violence as any early option, without forming any wide organization, movement or common goals. They have also employed violence in situations in which it wasn’t necessary, committed murder and kidnappings. Sooner or later, the Ukrainian government will have to deal with these terrorists with force, or else it stands to completely lose control of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.