Pictures are identical to the peaceful Maidan of December and early January. Putin is just following up on his words of using civilians as human shields (as per his Crimea speech in March)
The challenge is, how do you flush out the Russian specnaz with minimal civilian losses. You could do it the way Yanukovych did it, start shooting and let God sort them out. Except these are regular soldiers and based on today, are unlikely to open fire on civilians (too bad Berkut had no such qualms).
You can’t really negotiate with these terrorists - Kyiv already had agreed to hold a referendum. Actually, there’s no one in Ukraine for Kyiv to negotiate with, and Putin appears to be aiming to bring the whole country down, not just Donbas.
So, it’s left to the “hearts and minds” of the population and whether they will support the Russian specnaz. The people in the pictures, who came out to impede the Ukrainian forces, are supporting the specnaz. There are many in Donbas who do not, but I doubt RT covered those pro-Ukrainian rallies, right tcrlaf? ;) So they need to make themselves heard even more.
I’m afraid Ukraine would be forced to inflict some civilian casualties, otherwise this Putin’s human shield tactic can be carried all the way to Kyiv and Lviv.