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. ||||| A cordon of Interior Ministry personnel (front) stand guard in front of a group of pro-Russian protesters outside the regional administration building in Kharkiv, April 8, 2014. 
 
 KIEV/DONETSK, Ukraine Police detained 70 people occupying a regional administration building in eastern Ukraine overnight, but pro-Moscow protesters held out in a standoff in two other cities in what Kiev called a Russian-led plan to dismember the country. 
 
 Kiev says the seizure of public buildings in eastern Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking industrial heartland on Sunday night is a replay of events in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow annexed last month. 
 
 Ukrainian authorities gave few details of the "anti-terrorist" operation that cleared the building in the town of Kharkiv but said two police had been wounded by a grenade that was thrown. Russia has denied Ukrainian charges of involvement but warned Kiev against any use of force against Russian-speakers. 
 
 Ukrainian special forces in combat gear, helmets and balaclavas and carrying kalashnikovs and machine guns stood guard early on Tuesday outside the building whose outside windows were broken. 
 
 A partly destroyed sign near the main door read: "Avakov - to jail", a reference to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. 
 
 The pro-Russian protesters who also took over official buildings in Luhansk and Donetsk demanded that referendums be held on whether to join Russia like the one that preceded Moscow's annexation 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," Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said in public remarks to his cabinet. "We will not allow this." 
 
 Interior Minister Avakov said on Tuesday about 70 "separatists" had been detained in Kharkiv. 
 
 "An anti-terrorist operation has been launched. The city center is blocked along with metro stations. Do not worry. Once we finish, we will open them again," he wrote on his Facebook page. 
 
 Ukraine's Interior Ministry was quoted by Interfax-Ukraine news agency as saying those detained were suspected of "illegal activity related to separatism, the organization of mass disorder, damage to human health" and breaking other laws. 
 
 Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Yarema as saying there would be no storming of Donetsk's regional authority building on Tuesday. 
 
 He said the decision was made after talks in Donetsk with the protesters involving influential and wealthy businessman Rinat Akhmetov, who is from the city. 
 
 On Tuesday about 200 people were gathered in front of the building and a group of National Guard were stood to one side. But the situation was calm and there was no sign of any attempt to enter by force. 
 
 Acting President Oleksander Turchinov, in a televised address to the nation, said Moscow was attempting to repeat "the Crimea scenario". He added that "anti-terrorist measures" would be deployed against those who had taken up arms. 
 
 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a phone call that Washington was watching events in eastern Ukraine with great concern and any further moves by Moscow to destabilize Ukraine would "incur further costs for Russia". 
 
 Kerry "called on Russia to publicly disavow the activities of separatists, saboteurs and provocateurs" in Ukraine, the State Department said. The two discussed convening direct talks in the next 10 days between Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the European Union to defuse tensions. 
 
 WHITE HOUSE WARNING 
 
 The White House warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against moving "overtly or covertly" into eastern Ukraine and said there was strong evidence that pro-Russian demonstrators in the region were being paid. 
 
 Lavrov told Kerry that constitutional reform was required to resolve the crisis. Russia says this would give Ukraine's regions more powers, as it believes the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine are being violated. 
 
 In an article on the website of Britain's Guardian newspaper, Lavrov denied Russia was destabilizing Ukraine and accused the West of the "groundless whipping-up of tension". 
 
 Separately, he warned authorities in Kiev against any use of force against pro-Russian demonstrators. 
 
 The Russian Foreign Ministry later called on Ukraine to stop massing military forces it said were tasked with suppressing anti-government protests. 
 
 "We call for an immediate halt to military preparations which could lead to an outbreak of civil war," the ministry said in a statement. 
 
 Police said they cleared the protesters from the building in Kharkiv, but in Luhansk the demonstrators had seized weapons. 
 
 In Donetsk, home base of deposed Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovich, about 120 pro-Russia activists calling themselves the "Republican People's Soviet of Donetsk" seized the chamber of the regional assembly. 
 
 An unidentified bearded man read out "the act of the proclamation of an independent state, Donetsk People's Republic" in front of a white, blue and red Russian flag. 
 
 "In the event of aggressive action from the illegitimate Kiev authorities, we will appeal to the Russian Federation to bring in a peacekeeping contingent," ran the proclamation. 
 
 The activists later read out the text by loud hailer to a cheering crowd of about 1,000 outside the building. 
 
 RUSSIAN SPEAKERS 
 
 Putin announced on March 1, a week after Yanukovich was overthrown, that Moscow had the right to take military action in Ukraine to protect Russian speakers, creating the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. 
 
 The United States and EU imposed mild financial sanctions on some Russian officials over the seizure of Crimea and have threatened much tougher measures if Russian troops, now massed on the frontier, enter other parts of Ukraine. 
 
 Western European governments have hesitated to alienate Russia further, fearing for supplies of Russian natural gas, much of which reaches EU buyers via pipelines across Ukraine. Ukraine's own dependence on Russian gas gives Moscow strong leverage, especially over Ukraine's eastern industrial areas. 
 
 Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom said it had received no payments from Ukraine for money owed for gas and Kiev's arrears have now reached $2.2 billion. In previous years, gas disputes between Moscow and Kiev have hurt supplies to Europe. 
 
 NATO has halted cooperation with Russia. The Western military alliance announced on Monday it would now restrict access to its headquarters by Russian diplomats apart from Moscow's ambassador, his deputy and two support staff. 
 
 Mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, densely populated and producing much of the country's industrial output, has seen a sharp rise in tension since Yanukovich fled the country, and Kiev has long said it believes Moscow is behind the unrest. 
 
 Pro-Russian protesters briefly held public buildings in the east early last month and three people were killed in clashes in mid-March. But trouble had subsided until Sunday. 
 
 Unlike in Crimea, where ethnic Russians form a majority, most people in the east and south are ethnically Ukrainian, although they speak Russian as a first language. Eastern oligarchs who once backed Yanukovich have thrown their weight behind the government in Kiev, and the unrest there is a test of their ability to assert control. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper, Natalia Zinets and Pavel Polityuk, Writing by Richard Balmforth, Peter Graff and Timothy Heritage, editing by Elizabeth Piper and Andrew Heavens) ||||| 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) ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Steve Rosenberg: "The war of words between east and west continues" 
 
 The Ukraine authorities say they have seized back control of the regional administration building in the eastern city of Kharkiv from pro-Russia separatists. 
 
 They say they hope buildings in Luhansk and Donetsk will be freed shortly as well. 
 
 On Monday, pro-Russia demonstrators seized government buildings in the three cities. 
 
 Russia recently annexed the peninsula of Crimea following a referendum. 
 
 Kiev and the West say the referendum in the territory, where the majority of people are Russian speakers, was illegal. 
 
 Moscow has thousands of troops massed along its border with eastern Ukraine. 
 
 Although it insists it has no intention of invading Ukraine, it says it reserves the right to defend ethnic Russians in the country. 
 
 Ukraine Deputy Foreign Minister Danylo Lubkivsky has told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the situation in eastern Ukraine was "under control but remains dangerous". 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Interior ministry troops block a group of pro-Russia protesters in Kharkiv 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Pro-Russia protesters gather at a barricade outside the offices of the SBU state security service in Luhansk 
 
 Image caption Barricades can also be seen outside the Donetsk regional administration building 
 
 Image caption In the seized building in Donetsk, the man on the left says pro-Russia activists are "modern-day Oliver Cromwells", reports the BBC's Steve Rosenberg 
 
 Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov says several Ukrainian policemen have been injured in the operation to free the Kharkiv regional state administration. 
 
 Some 70 people were held without shots being fired, Ukraine's interior ministry said in a statement. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Lawmakers traded blows at Ukraine's parliament in Kiev 
 
 Mr Turchynov said those who seized the buildings would be treated as "terrorists and criminals" who would be prosecuted with the full force of the law. 
 
 Rebels occupying Donetsk's regional government building on Monday declared a "people's republic" and called for a referendum on secession from Ukraine to be held by 11 May. 
 
 There have been talks overnight in Donetsk between the authorities and pro-Russian activists who had occupied the regional administration building. 
 
 On Tuesday, Russia warned Ukraine to stop any military preparations, with the Russian foreign ministry saying in a statement that such preparations risked causing a civil war. 
 
 Russia is refusing to recognise the new authorities in Kiev who took power after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in February. 
 
 'Whipping up tension' 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen: "I urge Russia to step back" 
 
 Nato's Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has warned Russia that if it were to "intervene further in Ukraine it would be a historic mistake with grave consequences for our relationship with Russia and it would further isolate Russia internationally", he told the BBC. 
 
 Moscow denies orchestrating instability and separatist sentiment in Ukraine's industrial heartland. 
 
 In an article on the website of the UK's Guardian newspaper, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned what he described as the "groundless whipping up of tension" - he said the West was to blame for what was happening , because it had tried to force Ukraine to make a choice between east or west. 
 
 He also warned authorities in Kiev against any use of force against pro-Russian demonstrators. 
 
 On Tuesday, the Russian foreign ministry alleged that Ukraine was deploying "US mercenaries" from a private security firm dressed as Ukrainian special forces - but there has been no confirmation of that, says the BBC's Steven Rosenberg in Donetsk. 
 
 This is part of the continuing war of words between Russia and the West, our correspondent says. 
 
 But amid the war or words, there is still some talk of diplomacy, our correspondent adds: senior diplomats from the United States, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union are expected to meet within the next 10 days in an effort to defuse the tension. 
 
 The US and the EU have already imposed targeted sanctions on Russian and Ukrainian individuals over the annexation of Crimea. 
 
 BBC Moscow correspondent Daniel Sandford says that although events in Donetsk appear similar to those in Crimea, there are major differences. 
 
 Donetsk has many Ukrainian speakers as well as a Russian-speaking majority, and opinion polls there have shown considerable support for a united Ukraine, he says. 
 
 Eastern Ukraine was the political heartland of Mr Yanukovych and has a large Russian-speaking population. 
 
 Mr Yanukovych fled Kiev for Russia after months of street protests triggered by his refusal to sign an association agreement with the EU in favour of closer ties with Russia. More than 100 people died in the ensuing unrest. ||||| LUHANSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - Pro-Russian separatists reinforced barricades around the state security building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk on Wednesday and called on President Vladimir Putin for help after the government warned it could use force to restore order. 
 
 Protesters were also engaged in talks to ease the standoff, which Kiev has said could provide a pretext for a Russian invasion, and lawmakers from eastern Ukraine proposed an amnesty for protesters to defuse tension. 
 
 The former KGB headquarters is one of three government buildings seized this week in eastern Ukraine by protesters demanding regional referendums on independence from Kiev. 
 
 Tensions have risen in the mainly Russian-speaking east since the overthrow of Ukraine’s Moscow-backed president and the installation of a new pro-European government. 
 
 “Of course we must ask Russia to take us in because I don’t see an alternative,” said a man dressed in camouflage who gave his name as Vasiliy and said he was the commandant of the building. “Putin help us!” he said. 
 
 In a news conference held inside the occupied building late on Wednesday, Valery Bolikov, who said he was a representative of headquarters of the Southern and Eastern Army, said talks with authorities had failed to yet bring an agreement. 
 
 “Talks are continuing there are a few issues which are being dealt with but they haven’t come to their logical conclusion,” he said in Ukraine’s Security Services ornate conference hall. 
 
 While some protesters have championed the idea of joining Russia like Crimea, Bolikov said that their demands went no further than a referendum to vote whether to give Luhansk more autonomy as part of a federal structure in Ukraine. 
 
 “(We will leave the building) only after the fulfillment of our demands of the carrying out of a referendum on federalization,” he said. 
 
 Outside of the conference hall, masked men armed with kalashnikovs, pistols and guns lined the building’s many corridors. Tensions around the seizure of the building rose after the protesters broke into the security service’s arsenal. 
 
 One protesters put the arsenal at around 200-300 rifles. 
 
 Local police spokeswoman Tatyana Pogukai said that police were not taking any action while negotiations were ongoing. 
 
 “We don’t want any violence. No one needs any death or blood,” she said over the telephone. 
 
 FORCEFUL ANSWER’ 
 
 Protesters in Donetsk, to the south, remain in control of the main regional authority building, but authorities have ended the occupation in the city of Kharkiv. 
 
 “A resolution to this crisis will be found within the next 48 hours,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told reporters in the capital Kiev. 
 
 A pro-Russian protester stands at a barricade outside a regional government building in Donetsk, April 9, 2014. REUTERS/Maks Levin 
 
 “For those who want dialogue, we propose talks and a political solution. For the minority who want conflict they will get a forceful answer from the Ukrainian authorities,” he said. 
 
 Ukraine’s state security service said that 50 people had left the building in Luhansk overnight. Protesters confirmed that some had left. 
 
 “Those who left were not ready to stay and fight,” said Vasiliy, who said his “soldiers” would fight on until a referendum on independence from Kiev was held. 
 
 Occupation leaders said those who stayed behind were trained soldiers who had fought in Chechnya and Afghanistan. 
 
 “We won’t be the first ones to fire a shot but we will defend ourselves,” said Pavel Strupchevsky. 
 
 Protesters insist that they have no help from Russia and that no Russians are among their ranks, but Ukraine’s government says the actions are part of a Russian-led plan to dismember the country, a charge Moscow denies. 
 
 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russian agents and special forces on Tuesday of stirring up separatist unrest and said Moscow could be trying to prepare for military action as it had in Crimea. 
 
 Russia denied the accusations on Wednesday and dismissed concerns over a troop buildup near the border with Ukraine in what has become the worst East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War in 1991. 
 
 “Russia has stated many times that it is not carrying out any unusual or unplanned activity on its territory near the border with Ukraine that would be of military significance,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. 
 
 Slideshow (7 Images) 
 
 A lawmaker from the most popular political party in the east, the Party of Regions, on Wednesday said he planned to ask parliament to amnesty the protesters, following the success of a similar move to reduce tension in Kiev two months ago. 
 
 “The situation is so tense and complex that one stray word might cause a flare-up,” said Oleksandr Yefremov. “To prevent people suffering ... we are proposing a draft law on an amnesty.”
– 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.