Looks like the show­down is about to begin, alleged­ly with U.S. mer­ce­nar­ies involved:

http://en.ria.ru/world/20140410/189141780/US-Mercenaries-and-Right-Sector-Fighters-Move-Into-Donetsk-.html

DONETSK, Ukraine, April 10 (RIA Novosti) – A rag­tag band of US mer­ce­nar­ies, Ukrain­ian Nation­al Guard sol­diers, and fight­ers from the rad­i­cal Right Sec­tor move­ment have arrived in the east­ern Ukrain­ian city of Donet­sk to raid a build­ing occu­pied by anti-gov­ern­ment pro­tes­tors, a leader of a local mili­tia group told RIA Novosti on Thurs­day.

“About a hun­dred peo­ple from the Nation­al Guard are housed at the Donet­sk air­port,” said Sergey Tsy­plakov, the deputy direc­tor of a local group called the People’s Mili­tia of the Don­bas.

“Around a hun­dred Right Sec­tor thugs are also in the city, as well as a hun­dred employ­ees from a pri­vate US mil­i­tary com­pa­ny oper­at­ing under con­tract with the Kiev jun­ta,” he added.

“In total, there are around 300 pro­fes­sion­als and well-trained and moti­vat­ed fanat­ics,” Tsy­plakov said. “This is a major force, but we are ready to fight.”

Pro-fed­er­al­iza­tion pro­test­ers have built three lines of bar­ri­cades in front of the main entrance of the Donet­sk region­al admin­is­tra­tion build­ing. The defen­sive for­ti­fi­ca­tions – dec­o­rat­ed with Russ­ian and region­al flags and anti-fas­cist slo­gans – are made from pieces of fur­ni­ture, barbed wire and car parts.

Around a hun­dred peo­ple spent the night near the bar­ri­cades pre­pared to defend against an expect­ed attack by gov­ern­ment forces. The pro­test­ers enforced the bar­ri­cades with blocks they removed from a near­by park’s stone paving, and piled stones inside the defen­sive perime­ter. Peo­ple were burn­ing bon­fires to stay warm in front of the bar­ri­cades and singing songs.

“Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Kiev have repeat­ed­ly told us to lay down the firearms which, in their opin­ion, we pos­sess. How­ev­er, nei­ther I, nor any­one else, have seen any weapons here. We are defend­ing our­selves by impromp­tu means,” Tsy­plakov said.

Donet­sk police have refused to dis­perse the pro­test­ers occu­py­ing the build­ing.

Pro-fed­er­al­iza­tion sup­port­ers occu­pied sev­er­al gov­ern­ment build­ings in the city on Mon­day. They declared the for­ma­tion of an inde­pen­dent “people’s repub­lic” and announced plans to sched­ule a ref­er­en­dum by mid-May on declar­ing inde­pen­dence and join­ing Rus­sia. Sim­i­lar events took place in near­by Kharkiv, the coun­try’s sec­ond largest city.

Ukrain­ian act­ing Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Arsen Avakov told jour­nal­ists Wednes­day that a “spe­cial police task force” had already arrived in Donet­sk and Kharkiv from west­ern regions of Ukraine and was ready to take them under con­trol with­in 48 hours, by force if nec­es­sary.

The min­is­ter’s threat came in defi­ance of warn­ings by Moscow and inter­na­tion­al experts that a vio­lent crack­down on the demon­stra­tors – who are seek­ing increased local auton­o­my – risked esca­lat­ing the cri­sis and plung­ing the coun­try into a civ­il war.