Ukraine’s acting president yesterday urged the United Nations to send peacekeeping troops to eastern ‘Ukraine, where pro-Russian gunmen kept up their rampage of storming and occupying local government offices, police stations and a small airport.

The request came from a government that has proved powerless to rein in separatists in its eastern and southern regions, where insurgents have seized or barricaded government buildings in at least nine cities, demanding more autonomy from the new government in Kiev and closer ties with Russia.

The Kiev government and Western officials accuse Russia of instigating the unrest and of deploying armed Russian agents in civilian clothing to carry them out.’

Read more: Send in the UN peacekeepers, pleads Ukraine as pro-Russian militias openly defy deadline to lay down guns