BALTIMORE, Maryland April 16, 2014 - Ukraine's Military routed Russian Troops holding the airport on the outskirts of the Eastern Ukraine City even as the Foreign Minister of the United Kingdom said the behavior being engaged in by Russia will radically change the way it is treated by western nations for a decade. Foreign Secretary William Hague in his annual Mansion House speech, said: "In recent days Russia has deliberately pushed Ukraine to the brink, and created a still greater risk of violent confrontation.
"But that does not entitle Russia to send in its armed groups, thinly disguised, to spearhead the occupation of buildings in multiple Ukrainian cities, to try permanently to destabilise the country and dictate the terms of its constitution.
"My message to Moscow is that if anyone thinks they can do these things without serious long-term consequences they are making a grave miscalculation. "Russia must choose whether it is open to diplomacy and de-escalation, and if it decides otherwise, we must be ready for a different state of relations with Russia in the next 10 years than in the last 20. Ukraine can be a bridge between East and West and be able to have good relations with Russia."
An airport on the outskirts of the eastern Ukraine city of Kramatorsk was surrounded by Ukrainian troops who arrived in military helicopters. In a short time the facility was back in Ukraine hands. Reporters saw military jets swooping low over the facility.
A Reuters correspondent in Kramatorsk saw four military helicopters over the airport. Two of these landed and when troops stepped out and walked across the field, locals manning a barricade shouted "Shame! Go back home!"
But if the retaking of the airport was good news for the government in Kiev, other reports from the region were just the opposite. In Slovyansk, western reporters said they saw a column of military vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, all displaying Russian flags. When reporters were able to interview the people on the vehicles, they said they were "former" Ukrainian military personnel who had switched side to the pro-Russians in the Donetsk area. And while the airport was freed, a mob took over another building in Donetsk.
In another development, Ukraine's security service said they had intercepted a message from Russian commanders to separatists in the Donetsk area that they were to begin shooting to kill government sympathizers.
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