The security situation in eastern Ukraine continues to deteriorate.<br /><br />The latest domino to fall was in the separatist-held city of Donetsk .. where a pro-Russian group of around 200 stormed the regional prosecutor’s office.<br /><br />A hail of rocks rained down on police guarding the entrance after they had fired stun grenades in a effort to disperse the crowd.<br /><br />The building had come under attack because the protesters said it was issuing arrest warrants, on orders from the capital Kyiv, charging people with separatism. <br /><br />The incident illustrates the inability of the Kyiv authorities in the region to prevent forces favorable to a rapprochement with Moscow from seizing government buildings.<br /><br />One of the pro-Russians explained the sequence of events: “The police started throwing stun grenades at us. Two separatists had to be taken to hospital and one is in intensive care. We didn’t back off, we went in there.”<br /><br />Inside symbols of the Kyiv government were smashed and Ukrainian flags burned. <br /><br />Journalists saw police officers, disarmed and beaten, forced to run a gauntlet of screaming men and women who slapped and spat at them. <br /><br />The violence, in a city already largely under the control of separatists, underscored the shifting security situation and suspicions in the region.
