At a newly erected checkpoint about 10km east of the separatist stronghold of Sloviansk on April 24, two soldiers named Dima and Vyacheslav were sitting in the turret of an armoured vehicle flying the Ukrainian flag – an increasingly rare sight in a region torn by separatist tensions. Vyacheslav said he had been there since the morning with orders to “stop people with weapons” from entering town; other soldiers had set up gun positions behind sandbags. Elsewhere in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, which has been a focus of the unrest, members of elite police units sporting red berets were stationed at other Kyiv-controlled checkpoints.
Financial Times: Ukraine raises pressure on eastern rebellion
Ukrainian special forces take position at an abandoned roadblock in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk on April 24, 2014.
