Interim President Oleksander Turchynov has called for UN peacekeepers to help regain areas taken by pro-Russian insurgents militants. Many believe these activists to be Russian Special Operation Forces (SOF) soldiers. Turchynov’s office told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon they could conduct joint-operations in eastern Ukraine. “We are not against and welcome if, with your assistance, we conduct a joint anti-terrorist operation in the east,” he said. President Turchynov stated that he had no objection to a referendum in eastern Ukraine to run alongside the planned presidential elections due in May. He strongly believes the majority of Ukrainians would endorse an “independent, democratic and unitary Ukraine.”

According to on-site witnesses, at least 100 armed pro-Russian insurgents attacked a police station in Horlivka earlier today, forcing the Ukrainian riot officers to withdraw from the area. Ukrainian TV footage was able to broadcast an ambulance treating several people who were ostensibly wounded during the assault on the police station in Horlivka.

Separatist leaders in Horlivka have submitted a request for help from Moscow on behalf of the “Donetsk People’s Republic,” Reuters reported. Armed men supporting the separatists, who Western leaders claim to be Russian SOF, have established roadblock checkpoints and barricades in the area’s towns.

World leaders cautioned the recent violent uprising and the capture of the government building to be a “dangerous escalation” in the current situation.

Meanwhile, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, vigorously denied Western claims that Moscow was instigating the violence in eastern Ukraine, and said Kyiv was employing neo-Nazi forces to destabilize eastern Ukraine regions. British Foreign Secretary William Hague enforced the Western views of Russian soldiers operating in eastern Ukraine. “There can’t be any real doubt that this is something that has been planned and brought about by Russia. The forces involved are well-armed, well-trained, well-equipped, well-coordinated, behaving exactly the same way as what turned out to be Russian forces behaved in Crimea before the full Russian military takeover of Crimea.”

Western leader will continue to urge the Russian Federation to cease their illegal activities in eastern Ukraine and will keep enforcing their position on withdrawing Russian troops from the Ukraine border.