Eastern Ukraine is in chaos. Each day brings more killings, more kidnappings and more seizures of government buildings by pro-Russian militants. Local police are now powerless to stop the violence and the country's military is fighting for control. Ukraine's government admits that it's completely lost its grasp of the region.
I've come to Donetsk, the pro-Russian province at the centre of this crisis. The separatists here call it the Donetsk People's Republic, a self-proclaimed state that want independence from Ukraine and a new future in an expanded Russian motherland.
CROWD (Translation): Glory to her heroes! Glory to Ukraine! One united, free Ukraine! Death to the enemies! Down with Putin!
Last week, pro-Ukrainian demonstrators took to the streets here to voice their support for unity and to call for Russia to stay away. But the pro-Russian separatists, who wheeled control of this city, would have none of it.
REPORTER: OK, let's go. Let’s get out of here.
CROWD (Translation): There’s a guy with a gun. Holy shit. It’s not a good idea to stand here.
REPORTER: No.
MAN: Because they are going, they are coming.
REPORTER: Okay. Where should we head?
MAN: This way.
REPORTER: Okay.
As we flee the violence, I see riot police huddled together for protection, powerless to intervene while thugs armed with baseball bats and knives run riot. Anyone with the Ukrainian flag was a target.
RIOTER (Translation): Get the camera away! I said, get it away!
This clash marked a clear turning point, a realisation that in Donetsk voicing support for Ukraine was enough to get you killed. In cities all throughout eastern Ukraine, there have been clashes between pro and anti-Russian forces, with mounting fears here that Russian troops are now poised to invade.
We're on our way to Lugansk, which is about halfway between Donetsk and the Russian border. Since the crisis began it's been one of the strongholds of the pro-Russian separatist movement and they've effectively taken control of the city.
YEVGENY, PRO RUSSIAN PROTESTER (Translation): So, we’ve dug in in the Security Service building.
Pro-Russian protester Yevgeny guides them through his makeshift camp, set up after the former president Victor Yanukovich, was ousted from power in February.
YEVGENY (Translation): We watched the whole thing on TV. It didn’t seem real at the time. And when it all started here, with the law cancelling the Russian language’s official status... They pitted us against each other.
For them, the current government in Kiev is illegitimate and came to power on the back of a coup.
SONG (Translation): Let’s say no to the murderous junta. Lugansk is fighting and winning…
Russians form the largest ethnic minority in Ukraine and Yevgeny claims they've long been treated like second-class citizens.
YEVGENY (Translation): We’ve been smacked down so many times, all the time. We just need to put in place a good, proper government.
The city of Lugansk is about 40% pro-Russian. The other 60% apparently are pro-Ukrainian but of course they're nowhere to be seen around here. One can only imagine that they're perhaps a bit intimidated by the situation here in the middle of town.
With pro-Russian separatists on the move, Ukrainians are preparing to defend their territory. I'm on my way to a Ukrainian National Guard training base to see how some of the locals are preparing to fight back. We're just being blocked at two locations and now we're trying the third one. It looks like the road is blocked again by pro-Russian separatists. But we'll try and go straight ahead and see how far we can get. I get closer, I find a crowd has gathered at the base and a furious argument is under way.
CROWD (Translation): Where are the reporters? Get over here! Don’t fucking stand there! Film!
They’re pointing guns at people.
MAN (Translation): He fired in the air.
MAN (Translation): Why?
MAN (Translation): You tried to get in.
MAN (Translation): You’re fucked before sunset.
MAN (Translation): Like fuck we’ll leave.
MAN (Translation): I curse you.
MAN (Translation): You’ll all die.
MAN (Translation): A 1.8 metre-long grave, that’s it.
MAN (Translation): Step aside! I’ve told you to leave.
MAN (Translation): Step out. Fight me hand to hand! Give us Misha back!
REPORTER: What’s wrong with this lady?
TRANSLATOR: Her son was kidnapped by them…
WOMAN (Translation): What can I say? I came back without my child.
TRANSLATOR (Translation): Was he taken this morning at the Krasnoarmeysky checkpoint? Who told you they were here?
WOMAN (Translation): A friend phoned me.
The crowd claims the Ukrainian troops kidnapped 11 pro-Russians from a separatist checkpoint nearby.
MAN (Translation): Here’s a mother, weeping. How is she going to live now? Her son went not to defend himself, but to defend us all. Isn’t it Fascism when they just grab living people?
TRANSLATOR (Translation): Please calm down, we’ll find them. The thing is they are alive, we have got word. The main thing is they are alive.
MAN (Translation): Where are our kids? Where are they? Where were they taken? We’ll pay for them.
SOLDIER (Translation): No way.
The confrontation eventually turns from the personal to the political.
MAN (Translation): Don’t you fucking try to talk politics to me. Bloody America will suck your resources dry and give you shit. Don’t interrupt me. Europe will eat up all Ukrainian resources bleed you dry and rip you off.
Word quickly spreads and local miners are bussed in to support the cause.
MINERS (Translation): Russia! Russia!
With the mob swelling, the National Guard is getting nervous and the separatists are keen to show me the Ukrainian snipers positioned in the field.
MAN (Translation): Hey, guy! Reporter! TV! Look! Another one has crawled out. The sniper’s going to shoot from there. Watch out, fuck.
CROWD (Translation): Fascists! Fascists! Fascists!
Eventually, the troops have had enough and decide to call in the cavalry from above. So at the moment the Ukrainian military helicopter still doing rounds around the base. So this is obviously a message to the pro-Russian separatists that the Ukrainian military here is not going to muck around. There are a few stragglers here but generally the crowd - there were hundreds here - have dispersed in just minutes.
But while the pro-Russians were in retreat here, back in Donetsk they were storming yet another government building. This time it was the prosecutor's office. While some police were bashed with rocks, others ran for their lives as the angry mob ransacked the building, burning documents. It was this humiliating spectacle that triggered Ukraine's military offensive to reclaim the east.
But then the violence suddenly flared where it was least expected - 600 kilometres away in the Black Sea port of Odessa. Pro-Russian separatists attacked a rally. In response, pro-Ukrainians chased them inside a building and set it on fire. 42 people were killed. The Odessa massacre, as some are calling it, was the deadliest day in Ukraine's unrest since the new government came to power.
OKSANA (Translation): It’s horrible what’s happening here, right?
In their Donetsk apartment, Oksana and her father Gennady are absorbing the news of the tragedy.
OKSANA (Translation): How can we let our kids grow up in this country? How can people in Odessa or Sloviansk let their children go out?
GENNADY YATSENKO (Translation): Hopefully it’ll all end soon and we’ll remember it as a nightmare.
While Oksana and Gennady both abhor the violence in their country, they are divided about what's happening in their own city.
GENNADY YATSENKO (Translation): This is complete nonsense, this Donetsk People’s Republic!
OKSANA (Translation): Yes, they’re self-proclaimed.
GENNADY YATSENKO (Translation): So they are pretenders. What unity can exist here, if there are pretenders?
Gennady Yatsenko is a proud Ukrainian but his daughter thinks the country would be better off under Russian leadership.
OKSANA (Translation): Yes, I think Russia is really a helping hand for us in our current situation. Why? Because... Russians live under a clear plan. They have a developmental plan to improve people’s quality of life. We’ve had nothing like that for at least five years now.
GENNADY YATSENKO (Translation): I do not support it. No. Ukraine must be united.
But one thing the Yatsenko family agree on is that their country is falling apart.
OKSANA (Translation): Police stations were taken over, where are our police who protect us, the people we should rely on in emergencies? If the law is broken, if our rights are infringed, the police are to help us. Where are they?
For people like Gennady Yatsenko, who oppose Russian intervention, things are so tense outside that simply leaving the apartment exposes him to a potential attack.
GENNADY YATSENKO (Translation): Hello. Any fresh papers?
MAN (Translation): Here.
GENNADY YATSENKO (Translation): How much do I owe you?
MAN (Translation): The Evening Makeevka. 2.50.
Gennady is keen to learn the latest on the upcoming referendum. In five days' time, the people of Donetsk will vote on whether to break away from Ukraine.
GENNADY YATSENKO (Translation): I know that a bill on the local referendum was put before the parliament. If it was signed into law, I haven’t seen it. The media don’t tell us anything about it. If it was rejected, then I think the referendum is worthless.
DENIS PUSHILIN, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC (Translation): Do you support a declaration of national sovereignty “of the Donetsk People’s Republic?” Answers: Yes or No.
Denis Pushilin is the self-appointed chairman of the Donetsk People's Republic. If the referendum passes, this separatist leader will see himself as the region's legitimate ruler.
DENIS PUSHILIN (Translation): You’ve seen that about 20 helicopters were involved. Our boys managed to shoot down three of them.
He describes a fresh attack on his militia in a city nearby and gives a sobering prediction.
DENIS PUSHILIN (Translation): Is an attack in Donetsk expected? For sure, every day, I think.
We’ve got used to it. The Kiev junta is capable of every dirty act.
MAN (Translation): Over there, there’s a banner with our fallen, the people who have died here.
This has become the worst stand-off between Russia and the West since the Cold War. The US accuses Russia of stoking this conflict, seizing an opportunity to annex more of this land. Putin accuses the West of installing the government in Kiev and says he will do whatever it takes to protect Ukraine's Russians.
MAN (Translation): They’re ready to fight to the end, to the bitter end. They know they’re fighting for their children’s and grandchildren’s future. If you wait for just four years, it will be too late to save Ukraine.
As I prepared to leave Ukraine, I get word that there's another separatist mob gathering at a city government building.
WOMAN (Translation): Don’t hit him! Don’t hit him!
MAN (Translation): Leave him alone! Fuck…
A man they suspect to be pro-Ukrainian has been seized, bashed and hauled to the front. Some want the separatists to take the moral high ground.
MAN (Translation): People, don’t! You’re not animals! Let’s not be like those beasts that burned people in Odessa.
But most of the crowd bayed for his blood.
CROWD (Translation): Fuck… Let’s all attack him. He’s of no use anyway. We’ll tear him to pieces
He's frogmarched towards a waiting car, with Russian number plates, and forced inside.
CROWD (Translation): Fucking die! Jerk! C***! We’ll burn your mother! We’ll burn everyone!
You’ll burn alive! May you burn!
Who he is and why he was taken no-one would say. But I fear he's the latest victim in this country's tragic and violent conflict.
ANJALI RAO: The terror that is Ukraine right now. Nick Lazaredes there, running the gauntlets of pro-Russian militia. During the past week Nick has been threatened at gunpoint and had his footage deleted by gunmen. There's a video blog from Nick with more about his experiences on our website.
Reporter/Camera
NICK LAZAREDES
Producer
DONALD CAMERON
Fixers
ILLIA GALKA
VLADIMIR CHEPPEL
Translations
ELENA MIKHAILIK
Editor
WAYNE LOVE