Swiss citizens told to leave parts of Ukraine

The Swiss foreign ministry has recommended that all Swiss citizens “temporarily” leave regions of Ukraine facing separatist tensions, including Donetsk, Odessa, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk. Ministry officials fear more violence or even outright conflict.
The decision to leave those regions is up to individuals themselves and to the extent that is safe to do so the ministry said in a statement on Friday. Citizens were also asked to inform the Swiss embassy in Kiev if they chose to leave their place of residence.
The foreign ministry warned that if the situation deteriorates further in eastern Ukraine, its means of helping citizens still there would be at best limited if non-existent.
Travel to elsewhere in Ukraine for tourism or other purposes is not currently recommended either given the tense and uncertain situation throughout the country. Further instability, violence or open conflict cannot be ruled according to the foreign ministry, and supplies, communications as well as freedom of movement could be restricted.
Ukrainian forces killed up to five pro-Russian rebels on Thursday as they closed in on the separatists’ military stronghold in the east, and Russia launched army exercises near the border in response, raising fears its troops would invade.
The Ukrainian offensive amounts to the first time Kiev’s troops have used lethal force to recapture territory from rebels who have seized swathes of eastern Ukraine since April 6 and proclaimed an independent “People’s Republic of Donetsk”.
The Kremlin, which says it has the right to invade its neighbour to protect Russian speakers, has built up forces – estimated by NATO at up to 40,000 troops – on Ukraine’s border.
Seven observers of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were also taken prisoner along with five Ukrainian soldiers and their bus driver by separatists on Friday in the town of Slaviansk according to the Ukrainian interior ministry. However the OSCE has yet to confirm this.
The Slaviansk separatist leader Viatcheslav Ponomarev claimed that one those being held works for the Ukrainian military chief-of-staff, stating he was a “spy”.

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