Pro-Russian activists gather in front of an entrance of the Ukrainian regional office of the Security Service in Luhansk, 20 miles west of the Russian border, in Ukraine, Tuesday, April 8, 2014.LUHANSK, Ukraine – Ukraine’s Security Service said Wednesday morning that 56 people held inside an agency’s local headquarters in the eastern city of Luhansk occupied by pro-Russian separatists have been allowed to leave the premises.
The Luhansk security services building was among several government offices seized by pro-Moscow groups Sunday in an escalation of protests against the interim government in power since the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych in February.
All the cities affected by the uprisings are in Ukraine’s industrial heartland in the east, which has a large population of ethnic Russians and where hostility is strong toward the government that took power in February after the ouster of Kremlin-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych.
As of Wednesday morning, protesters in Luhansk had erected high barricades along a thoroughfare running in front of the security service premises.
Security services said Tuesday that separatists inside the building, armed with explosives and other weapons, were holding 60 people hostage. It was not immediately clear if the 56 allowed to leave Wednesday were among that number, or how many people were still being held.