Ukraine's prime minister on Thursday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to sabotage the country's upcoming presidential election and said Moscow was responsible for deaths in recent clashes in eastern Ukraine.
"Russia is playing only one game: further aggravation, further provocation, because the task, that Putin today officially announced, is to wreck the presidential election on May 25," Arseny Yatseniuk told journalists in Kiev.
Putin on Thursday said Ukraine's presidential election campaign was being conducted in an unacceptable manner and Russia would not view its results as legitimate if the race continued in the same manner.
This comes as the State Security Service (SBU) said Ukraine is holding in detention about 10 Russian citizens, all of whom have intelligence backgrounds.
Answering a journalist's question about comments made on Thursday by Russian President Vladimir Putin about the extent of Russian involvement in the Ukraine crisis, an SBU spokeswoman said: "We have about 10 Russians, with Russian passports, who have been detained.
"They have all had experience of intelligence work," she said. They were being investigated, she said.
Pro-Russian separatists attacked a base of the Ukrainian national guard in an eastern city overnight and Kiev said three of the militants were killed, bloodshed likely to overshadow crisis talks in Geneva.
Ukrainian, Russian and Western diplomats arrived for the emergency talks in Switzerland, but there was little hope of any progress in resolving a crisis that has seen armed pro-Russian fighters seize whole swathes of Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin, who overturned decades of post-Cold War diplomacy last month by declaring Russia's right to intervene in neighboring countries and annexing Ukraine's Crimea region, may give clues to the extent of his territorial ambitions at an annual televised question and answer session. He has deployed tens of thousands of troops on the frontier.
The new deadly clashes in the port of Mariupol took place even as a modest Ukrainian military operation to recapture territory elsewhere from armed pro-Russian rebels ended in disarray, with troops surrendering rather than open fire.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said an armed group of about 300 separatists attacked the National Guard base in Mariupol with guns and petrol bombs. Three separatists were killed in shooting that followed and 13 were wounded, he said. No guardsmen were hurt.
Pro-Russian militants control buildings in about 10 towns in eastern Ukraine after launching their uprising on April 6. Kiev fears that Moscow, which claims the right to use military force to protect its supporters, could see any deaths as a pretext to launch an invasion.
ICC:
Ukraine on Thursday invited the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into any serious international crimes that may have been committed on its territory in late 2013 and early 2014, the court said in a statement.
The invitation, in the form of a declaration accepting the court's jurisdiction for the period between November 21 and February 22, does not ask the court to investigate Russia's formal military involvement in Ukraine's Crimea province, which began on Feb. 27.
Ukraine's parliament earlier this year urged the ICC to investigate crimes allegedly committed by former President Viktor Yanukovich in an attempt to put down the protests that eventually toppled him and drove him into Russian exile. The court's prosecutors are not obliged to investigate.
Reactions:
The United States will send additional non-lethal military support to Ukraine, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday, in the latest U.S. move to reassure allies following Russia's annexation of Crimea and a buildup of Russian forces on the Ukrainian border.
"Earlier this morning I called Ukraine's acting defense minister to tell him that President Obama has approved additional non-lethal military assistance for health and welfare items and other supplies," Hagel said, speaking at a Pentagon news conference after talks with Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak.
The new support follows NATO's announcement on Wednesday that it would send more ships, planes and troops to eastern Europe "within days." NATO has made clear it will not intervene militarily in Ukraine, which is not a NATO member.
This comes as the Russian Foreign Ministry demanded clarification from Ukraine and said it would consider retaliating after Kiev said it would impose restrictions on entry into the country by Russian men.
Putin's televised call-in
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday Ukraine's decision to send armed forces into eastern Ukraine instead of trying to establish a dialogue with the Russian-speaking population there was a "grave crime."
In a televised call-in with the nation, Putin said crisis talks being held in Geneva were "very important" and urged the government in Kiev to sit down to talks with Russian-speaking communities in the east of the country.
He said claims that Russian forces were present in east Ukraine were "rubbish".
Putin said he was certain that Russia and Ukraine could reach a compromise following Moscow's annexation of Crimea, saying the neighbors had a huge number of common interests.
However, Putin said Russian forces had been active in Crimea in order to support local defense forces, the first time he has admitted deployment of Russian troops on the Black Sea peninsula.
On the financial level, the Russian president noted that the country would speed up the process of switching Crimea's banking system to the ruble, pointing out that it would take about a month to create a network and open up the needed number of accounts.
Femen Activists
Two women from the Femen activist group were detained on Thursday as they tried to conduct a bare-breasted protest outside the Geneva hotel which is hosting four-way talks on the Ukraine crisis.
A Reuters cameraman saw Swiss police detain the two women shortly before Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was due to arrive at the talks, where he will meet US Secretary of State John Kerry, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Ukraine's acting Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia.
Femen is an international women's movement which uses topless protests to denounce what it calls economic, cultural and ideological domination by men. It says on its website that its 'sextremist' activists are trained at centers in Ukraine and France.
REUTERS