Russian President Vladimir Putin urged his US counterpart Barack Obama in a phone conversation to use the American side's capabilities in full to prevent the use of force and a bloodshed in Ukraine, the Kremlin said Monday, ITAR-TASS reported.
"The Russian side stressed that protest rallies in Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov, Slavyansk and other cities of the Ukrainian Southeast are a result of the Kiev leadership's unwillingness and inability to take into account the interests of the Russian and Russian speaking population," the Kremlin said.
Protests against the new self-proclaimed Ukrainian authorities, who came to power as a result of a coup in February, have erupted in Ukraine's Russian-speaking eastern territories, namely the Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkov regions, with demonstrators demanding referendums on the country's federalization.