Chaos in southern Ukraine: Deadly fire, choppers down and street fighting

CNN World ^ | updated 9:23 PM EDT, Fri May 2, 2014 | By Nick Paton Walsh, Chelsea J. Carter and Victoria Butenko, CNN

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Slavyansk, Ukraine (CNN) -- Deadly street fighting, helicopters shot down and civilians being used as human shields.

That was the picture that emerged Friday in southern Ukraine as violence escalated amid reports that dozens of people were killed in a fire and still more were shot dead or wounded in street fighting, raising the question of whether the country can stave off a possible civil war.

The violence -- pitting pro-Russian separatists against Ukrainian forces and those who support the government in Kiev -- prompted an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, with Russia demanding an end to what it called Ukrainian aggression and Western powers accusing Moscow of funding the violence.

Russia and the West have squared off diplomatically over the fate of Ukraine, after Moscow annexed Crimea in March following the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. He was pushed from office after months of protests by people upset that he had turned away from Europe in favor of Russia.

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Ukrainian helicopter with UN symbols in Slovyansk turned out to be from Congo

Russian media used shots of Ukrainian peacekeeping operation two years ago in their report about Donbas.

Russian media reported false information about the anti-terrorist operation in Donbas, using video recording, which was almost two years old to compromise Ukrainian helicopters in Slovyansk. This information is provided by the regional media centre of the MoD of Ukraine in Chernigiv on Friday, 17th of May. Reports Correspondent.

“Some Russian media (channel “Vesti”) were reporting that helicopters with symbols of the United Nations were taking part in the anti-terrorist operation. In reality, on the video is the Ukrainian peacekeeping operation in Congo, which was two year ago,” – said is the statement.

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It was also reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry demanded UN to investigate use of helicopters with the UN symbols in Ukraine.

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