Frank-Walter Steinmeier says Ukraine is 'a few steps away' from military conflict as dozens are reported dead near Slavyansk 
 
 Ukraine is close to war, the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has warned in interviews published in four European newspapers on Tuesday. 
 
 Dozens are feared to have died in clashes outside Slavyansk on Monday as Ukrainian troops clashed with pro-Russia separatists. 
 
 "The bloody pictures from Odessa have shown us that we are just a few steps away from a military confrontation," Steinmeier told El País, Le Monde, La Repubblica and Gazeta Wyborcza. He added that the conflict had taken on an intensity "that a short time ago we would not have considered possible". 
 
 The acting Ukrainian interior minister, Arsen Avakov, claimed that more than 30 pro-Russia separatists had been killed in fighting outside the key rebel town on Monday. 
 
 "We estimate that the terrorists lost more than 30 people," Avakov wrote on his Facebook page. The Guardian was unable to confirm the figure. 
 
 According to officials, four Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and at least 30 injured in clashes with separatists as the army tried to regain control of eastern Ukraine. The fighting on the outskirts of Slavyansk, the base of the armed movement that has taken over a number of cities, was triggered when pro-Russia rebels reportedly ambushed Ukrainian forces. 
 
 The separatists reported deaths in the fighting but could not confirm the number of fatalities. A military helicopter was shot down although both pilots survived, according to the defence ministry. 
 
 On Tuesday morning, Donetsk airport was closed for departing and arriving flights because of a government order. Ukraine's government gave no information about the closure, and the airport spokeswoman said she had not received any information about how long the closure would last. 
 
 As well as the clashes in the east, the fallout from the violence and fatal fire late last week in the southern city of Odessa continued to be felt on Monday. 
 
 Under a leaden sky at the edge of a cemetery in Odessa, family and friends laid to rest Vladimir Markin, a local politician who was killed in the vicious street battles that convulsed the city last week. 
 
 A short distance away, the funeral of another man who died fighting pro-Ukrainian crowds was also taking place. The burials were the first of dozens over the next few weeks as the port city struggles to come to terms with Ukraine's most violent day since the new regime swept to power in February. 
 
 Markin, 44, was a key supporter of a semi-permanent protest camp in Odessa against the current Kiev government that was burned to the ground on Friday before fighting moved to the nearby trade union building. At some point during the melee he was badly beaten and died in intensive care in a local hospital the following day. 
 
 The other funeral was of Maksim Nikitenko, 31, who was also killed early on during the struggle inside the trade union building. "They fought and cracked open his skull and then he was thrown out of the window," said Petya, a friend. 
 
 Nikitenko was not a separatist or an extremist, but he ran to defend the building when he heard it was under attack, Petya added. 
 
 Before the burials, Markin's open casket lay in the local parliament building for friends, colleagues and residents of Odessa to pay their last respects. 
 
 Outside, an angry crowd gathered and the regional governor, who had come to lay flowers, was assaulted and forced to flee ignominiously down a corridor. When pallbearers carried the coffin out of the building people clapped and chanted: "Odessa is a Russian city," "Hero, hero, hero!" and "Odessa will not forgive nor forget." 
 
 The Ukrainian interior ministry said on Monday morning that 42 people detained during the violence had been transferred to other parts of the country. The move came after an angry mob forced police to release more than 60 detainees on Sunday. 
 
 Avakov said a special forces battalion had been transferred to the city to help maintain order. 
 
 The Ukrainian government has said the violence was initiated by Russian provocateurs, while Russia has referred to the deaths – many of which were caused by a fire that broke out inside the building – as a massacre inspired by "neo-Nazis". The events have worsened an already tense situation. 
 
 Supporters of closer ties with Russia, who made up the majority of the mourners, blame the government in Kiev – which they describe as a junta and illegitimate, mirroring Russian state propaganda about the Ukrainian authorities – for the deaths last week. They accuse the police of failing to act swiftly enough to stop the violence. 
 
 Ukraine has accused Russia of directing the separatists, providing weapons and using proxy figures on the ground. Most analysts think Russia does not want a Crimea-style annexation of eastern Ukraine, but merely to stir up discontent and disrupt elections at the end of May. 
 
 In recent days, Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has made no public statements about the situation, but the Russian foreign ministry again blamed Kiev in a statement on Monday evening. 
 
 "The so-called authorities in Kiev continue to wage war against the people of their own country," said the ministry, adding there was a humanitarian catastrophe brewing in the east of the country and calling on Kiev to stop the bloodshed. 
 
 Ukrainian authorities have likewise repeatedly called on Russia to stop stirring unrest in the region, as accusations continue to fly between the two countries. 
 
 Germany said on Monday it was pushing for fresh diplomatic talks in Geneva between Russia, Ukraine, the EU and US, to push for a return to the accord reached last month that encouraged all sides to put down their weapons. 
 
 Steinmeier said new talks were needed to reach a "clear conclusion as to how this conflict can be brought to a halt". 
 
 In eastern Ukraine, surveys show the vast majority of people want more autonomy from Kiev but only a minority want to join Russia. However, the mood has turned nastier in the last week, with crowds burning Ukrainian flags and many speaking about a "point of no return". 
 
 In Odessa, 52-year-old Igor Bulatov, an engineer who attended the funerals, said that while there were few separatists among current pro-Russia protesters, the deaths last week might change that. "I came to pay my respects to people who were murdered … when you kill people for their ideas it is fascism," he said. 
 
 "Recent events mean a lot of people are now wondering about what country they want to live in. There is an atmosphere of shock. It is a moment of self-definition: people have to decide who they are and what they want." ||||| BERLIN (AP) — Germany is advising its citizens to leave Ukraine's troubled east and south, citing increasing tension in the region and risks of being detained by separatists. 
 
 Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil, left, poses with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier for photos after their joint news conference at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 The Foreign Ministry made the recommendation in updated travel advice on its website Tuesday. It said recent developments suggest that "media representatives face a particular danger of being held or arrested by separatist forces." 
 
 Four Germans were among a team of European military observers that were held for more than a week by insurgents in the separatist stronghold of Slovyansk until their release on Saturday. 
 
 Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has called for all sides in the conflict to hold a second diplomatic conference in Geneva. He has urged all to agree to conduct presidential elections to give Ukraine's new leadership "democratic legitimacy." ||||| DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's Interior Minister said Tuesday that 30 pro-Russian insurgents were killed during operations to expunge anti-government forces in and near a city in the east, while the Kiev authorities attempted to reassert control over the southern region of Odessa by appointing a new governor there. 
 
 An armed Pro-Russian man guards the barricades on a road leading into in Slovyansk, eastern Ukraine, Monday, May 5, 2014. Ukrainian troops fought pitched gunbattles Monday with a pro-Russia militia occupying... (Associated Press) 
 
 A nurse holds a gun as she helps a wounded Pro-Russian gunmen to get out of the car in front of local hospital in Slovyansk, eastern Ukraine, Monday, May 5, 2014. Ukrainian troops fought pitched gun battles... (Associated Press) 
 
 An armed Pro-Russian man guards the barricades on a road leading into in Slovyansk, eastern Ukraine, Monday, May 5, 2014. Ukrainian troops fought pitched gun battles Monday with a pro-Russia militia occupying... (Associated Press) 
 
 Arsen Avakov said on his Facebook page Tuesday that four government troops also died and 20 were injured during fighting in Slovyansk. 
 
 Gunbattles took place at various positions around the city Monday in what has proven the most ambitious government effort to date to quell unrest in the mainly Russian-speaking east. 
 
 Avakov said Monday that pro-Russia forces in Slovyansk, a city of 125,000, were deploying large-caliber weapons and mortars in the region and there were injured on both sides. Government troops were facing about 800 insurgents, he said. 
 
 In Donetsk, a major city some 120 kilometers south of Slovyansk, international flights from the local airport were suspended Tuesday. The airport said on its website that the cancellations followed a government order. 
 
 Ukraine is facing its worst crisis in decades as the polarized nation of 46 million tries to decide whether to look toward Europe, as its western regions want to do, or improve ties with Russia, which is favored by the many Russian-speakers in the east. Dozens of government offices have been seized, either by armed insurgents or anti-government crowds, over the past several weeks. 
 
 The central government attempted to re-establish control Tuesday over the predominantly Russian-speaking Black Sea region of Odessa, where 46 people died after fighting and a fire broke out between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian forces late on Friday. 
 
 In a statement published on the president's website, the Kiev authorities announced they were firing the acting governor and replacing him with member of parliament Ihor Palytsya. On Saturday, the police chief of the city was fired, mere hours after he had called for calm. 
 
 While no reasons were given for the latest change, the interim Kiev government has previously wielded its authority to appoint regional governors as a way of reasserting control over rebellious regions in the country's east. The concern that Odessa could be the next region to fall to pro-Russian forces — particularly after 67 people detained in the Friday fighting were released by the police under pressure from an angry crowd — has sparked concern in Kiev, which said it was sending an elite national guard force to the city on Monday. 
 
 The goals of the pro-Russian insurgency are ostensibly broader powers of autonomy for the region, but some insurgents do favor separatism. 
 
 Leaders of the anti-government movement say they plan to hold a referendum on autonomy for eastern regions on May 11, although visible preparations for the vote have to date been virtually negligible. 
 
 The Russian Foreign Ministry has put the blame for the unrest squarely on Kiev, which it says "stubbornly continues to wage war against the people of its own country." The ministry has urged what it called the "Kiev organizers of the terror" to pull back their troops from the east and hold peaceful negotiations to resolve the crisis. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Yuras Karmanau contributed reporting from Odessa, Ukraine. ||||| Cities across eastern Ukraine have been overtaken by pro-Russian protesters in recent weeks, leading the Ukrainian military to respond with force in some areas. 
 
 Cities across eastern Ukraine have been overtaken by pro-Russian protesters in recent weeks, leading the Ukrainian military to respond with force in some areas. 
 
 Cities across eastern Ukraine have been overtaken by pro-Russian protesters in recent weeks, leading the Ukrainian military to respond with force in some areas. 
 
 Pro-Russian insurgents shot down a Ukrainian military helicopter as heavy fighting re-erupted around a key rebel stronghold Monday, leaving at least eight people dead and dozens wounded. 
 
 The fierce fighting in Slovyansk, a separatist stronghold, broke out as the Ukrainian government sought to regain control of the key Black Sea port of Odessa, dispatching a special police unit to that city after deadly clashes there between rival mobs supporting Ukraine and Russia. 
 
 The day brought new setbacks to Ukrainian forces, with four troops killed and the helicopter shot down by rebel forces in clashes near Slovyansk that spanned several hours. 
 
 It was the fourth Ukrainian helicopter to be shot down in recent days. In a visit to a checkpoint near the fighting, Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, acknowledged that after years of neglect, his country’s military is weak and lacks basic supplies. 
 
 “Understand the real situation,” Avakov said, wearing combat fatigues and a black bulletproof vest. “Our army has been destroyed methodically for the past few years. We don’t have a normal army. We don’t have the appropriate special forces. What is happening now is a combat shakedown, the first in the past few years. We are figuring out who is who, who imitates and who is really not afraid.” 
 
 Ukraine’s interior minister says pro-Russian separatists have ambushed Ukrainian forces in Slovyansk, leaving an unknown number of people dead. (Reuters) 
 
 The military’s struggle to retake rebel-held cities in the east is mirrored by the police force’s inability to maintain law and order, an impotence that pro-Russian militants are fully exploiting. 
 
 Monday’s clashes came just as normal life was beginning to return to Slovyansk, a city of about 125,000 people, with pedestrians strolling across the central Lenin Square and light traffic wending its way through heavily barricaded, potholed streets lined with trees and ­decrepit Soviet-era apartment blocks. 
 
 The relative calm was shattered at mid-morning by a loud explosion and the sound of sporadic gunfire. 
 
 Church bells pealed, and rebel officials scurried home from the fortified city council building. Two armored personnel carriers, captured last month from Ukraine’s military, emerged from the rebels’ nearby headquarters packed with men in camouflage bristling with weapons and apparently heading for the front line. 
 
 Barricades of tires, sandbags, trees, concrete blocks and old trucks, almost deserted before the explosion, were quickly defended by jumpy armed men; both the rebels and the Ukrainian army closed roads in and out of the city for several hours. 
 
 The Ukrainian military helicopter was shot down by heavy machine-gun fire near Slovyansk about 2:30 p.m. local time, the Defense Ministry announced. The Mi-24 helicopter crashed in a river, and its pilots were rescued by Ukrainian security personnel, the ministry said. 
 
 Also Monday, the government of neighboring Moldova, with a large Russian-speaking population, placed its borders on alert, citing the unrest in Ukraine. 
 
 (The Washington Post) 
 
 The war of words between Russia and Ukraine continued to escalate, as Russia condemned the Ukrainian push against separatists in the east who want to see the region aligned with Moscow. 
 
 “The Kiev organizers of terror against their own people should think again and stop the bloodshed, remove troops and finally sit down at the table of negotiations to start normal dialogue on ways to solve the political crisis,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Ukrainian, U.S. and European officials have said that Russia has a hand in the unfolding chaos. 
 
 In Kiev, the Ukrainian government announced that it was temporarily closing all checkpoints and border crossings between Ukraine and Crimea — which Russia annexed in March — because of the unrest. 
 
 The closures effectively halt travel by boat and airplane from Ukraine to several cities on the Crimean Peninsula, which juts into the Black Sea. 
 
 In addition, Ukrainian authorities set up roadblocks around the capital as a preventive measure ahead of an important national holiday, the acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said Monday. In a statement on his official Web site, Turchynov said the extra security is a precaution against possible “provocations” by pro-Russian separatists ahead of Victory Day on Friday. 
 
 The May 9 holiday marks Nazi Germany’s capitulation to Soviet forces in World War II and has long been celebrated with patriotic fervor by Russians, Ukrainians and other nationalities that formed the old Soviet Union. Ukrainians worry that the holiday could inflame passions among pro-Russian separatists, who have cast themselves as the historic liberators of Ukraine and their opponents in Kiev as “fascists.” 
 
 Besides the four Ukrainian troops killed Monday, about 30 were wounded, the government said. Rebel accounts of casualties varied widely from four to 20 dead. 
 
 Rebels accused the army of inflicting civilian casualties Monday; the Interior Ministry said rebels had taken shelter in residential areas, using civilians as human shields. It was not possible to independently confirm the assertions. 
 
 Avakov, the interior minister, told reporters that the security forces’ advance was being slowed by strict orders not to fire on civilians. 
 
 “We are tied down by the civilian population,” he said, according to the Interfax news agency. “Some people support us and some do not. It doesn’t matter. The Ukrainian military cannot shoot civilians.” 
 
 Ukraine’s state security office said that rebels fired on a minibus ferrying wounded soldiers out of the combat zone but that the bus was armored and further deaths were avoided. 
 
 Slovyansk is encircled by Ukrainian security forces, the Defense Ministry said, although civilian traffic is being allowed to pass army and rebel checkpoints most of the time after searches and questioning. 
 
 But just a short drive south, the towns of Kramatorsk and Konstantinovka remain in rebel hands, with barricades flying the black, blue and red separatist flag. 
 
 In Odessa, a special police battalion was deployed by the central government to help restore order, Avakov said. The move came a day after pro- 
 
 Russian militants attacked a police station in Odessa and freed 67 of their allies, who had been detained during violent clashes Friday. 
 
 Avakov said the Kiev-1 police battalion had arrived in the country’s third-largest city to calm tensions that spiked when local police were unable — or unwilling — to control pro- 
 
 Russian mobs. Avakov, in a posting Monday on his Facebook page, said the failure of local police to keep order in Odessa was an “outrage” and possibly criminal. 
 
 The special police unit, he said, was recently formed with the assistance of “citizen activists,” presumably to ensure its loyalty to the acting government. Avakov said the entire leadership of the local police force had been dismissed, and he pledged an investigation of their role in the violence. 
 
 As questions arose about the effectiveness and loyalty of the police in restive areas of the country, Turchynov, the acting president, said the government was forming special police units and reshuffling the leadership of several local police forces. 
 
 On Friday, 46 people died in clashes and a fire in Odessa, marking the worst day of violence in Ukraine since pro- 
 
 Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in February. 
 
 The spread of the violence to Odessa has raised the stakes dramatically in the crisis, bringing the conflict between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian forces to the country’s most important port. 
 
 Kunkle reported from Kiev. Birnbaum reported from Moscow. Alex Ryabchyn and Anna Nemtsova in Donetsk contributed to this report. ||||| KRAMATORSK/ODESSA, Ukraine Both sides have been burying their dead as Ukraine slides further towards war, with supporters of Russia and of a united Ukraine accusing each other of tearing the country apart. 
 
 Tuesday was generally quieter than past days in most of eastern and southern Ukraine, but violence flared at dusk in the eastern port of Mariupol, where a spokesman for pro-Moscow militants told Russia's Itar-Tass news agency that one person was killed and three wounded in an attack on a checkpoint. 
 
 In Kramatorsk, a separatist-held town in the east that saw an advance by Ukrainian troops at the weekend, the coffin of 21-year-old nurse Yulia Izotova was carried through streets stilled by barricades of tires and tree trunks on Monday. Scattered red carnations traced the route. 
 
 At the Holy Trinity Church, seven priests led mourners in prayer for a woman killed by large caliber bullets, which the townsfolk believe were fired by Ukrainian troops. 
 
 "They shoot at us. Why? Because we don't want to live with fascists?" asked 58-year-old passport photographer Sergei Fominsky, standing with his wife among the mourners. "We're not slaves. We kneel to no one." 
 
 In Odessa, a previously peaceful, multi-ethnic Black Sea port where more than 40 people were killed on Friday in the worst day of violence since a February revolt toppled Ukraine's pro-Russian president, pall-bearers carried Andrey Biryukov's open casket from a van to the street corner where he was shot. 
 
 A pro-Ukrainian activist, Biryukov, 35, was killed during a day that began with hundreds of pro-Russian sympathizers armed with axes, chains and guns attacking a Ukrainian march, and ended later that night with the pro-Russians barricaded inside a building that was set on fire, killing dozens. 
 
 A small crowd of about 50 people stood around the body, covering it with carnations and roses. A Ukrainian flag fluttered in the wind, and a patriotic song about dead heroes was played from a sound system. 
 
 Relatives wept and a young woman fell on her knees crying loudly. The corner where the man died was decorated with flowers and small Ukrainian flags. 
 
 "The government has failed to protect its own people. The police have failed miserably," said Nikita, a grizzled 56-year-old with a Ukrainian yellow and blue arm-band. 
 
 Sergei, in his 40s, who also came to mourn, said violence "was imported to Odessa". 
 
 "We were proud of Odessa as a unique place where people used to live in peace, regardless of their beliefs and religion and race," he said. "Now this is all gone." 
 
 In Mariupol, the main port for the eastern coal and steel region of the Donbass, pro-Moscow militants told Russian news agencies that one of their checkpoints on the outskirts was attacked late on Tuesday - by Ukrainian forces or by pro-Kiev militia - and they were preparing to repel further assaults. 
 
 Local Web site 0629.com.ua posted pictures of tires blazing outside the city council building and thick smoke pouring over the town center. Some streets were barricaded by buses. 
 
 The surge in violence has changed the tone of international diplomacy, with even cautious European states speaking increasingly of the likelihood of war in a country of around 45 million people the size of France. 
 
 "The bloody pictures from Odessa have shown us that we are just a few steps away from a military confrontation," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in interviews published in four European newspapers. 
 
 GOVERNMENT OFFENSIVE 
 
 The next few days could prove decisive: separatists in the eastern Donbass region say they will hold a referendum on secession on Sunday May 11, similar to the one that preceded Russia's annexation of Crimea. 
 
 The U.S. State Department denounced any attempt at a vote as "bogus" and promised more sanctions if Russia used it, as in Crimea, to send in forces or annex more territory: "This is the Crimea playbook all over again," a spokeswoman said. 
 
 Secretary of State John Kerry said he would meet ministers in Europe next week to discuss the next steps on Ukraine. 
 
 Two days before the vote, Friday May 9, is the annual Victory Day holiday celebrating the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany. Moscow has been openly comparing the government in Kiev to the Nazis, and Ukrainian officials say they are worried that the day could provoke violence. In Moscow, there will be a massive parade of military hardware through Red Square, a Soviet-era tradition revived by President Vladimir Putin. 
 
 The past few days have seen government forces press on with an offensive but make little progress in the east, where separatist rebels have so far held firm at their main outpost in the town of Slaviansk and shot down three Ukrainian helicopters. 
 
 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Tuesday more than 30 separatists had been killed in fighting around Slaviansk, but there was no confirmation of such a figure. The rebels, who triggered fighting in the area on Monday by ambushing government troops, said four of their number had been killed. 
 
 At roadblocks in the town, some armed fighters have been replaced by civilians, like Alexandra, in her late 20s, who said she leaves her 10-year-old daughter at home each morning, puts a starting pistol in her belt and walks to the barricades. The tactic of putting civilians at the front could make a government offensive more difficult. 
 
 "We have two options - to use heavy artillery ... wipe everything out, put the flag up and report that everything has been done. The second option is a gradual blockade, destroying provocateurs and sabotage to prevent injuries among the population. We are carrying out the second scenario," said acting defense minister Mykhailo Koval, explaining why the operation has taken so long and achieved so little. 
 
 Since a pro-European government took power after the uprising that toppled pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, Putin overturned diplomatic convention by declaring Moscow's right to send troops across borders to protect Russian speakers. 
 
 In March, Russia seized and annexed Crimea, and in the weeks that followed, armed separatists have taken control of most of the Donbass, which accounts for around 15 percent of Ukraine's population and a third of industrial output. 
 
 Moscow has tens of thousands of troops massed on Ukraine's eastern frontier. The outbreak of violence in Odessa, hundreds of kilometers away near a Russian-occupied breakaway region of neighboring Moldova, means the unrest has spread across the breadth of southern and eastern Ukraine. 
 
 Western countries say Russian agents are directing the uprising and Moscow is stoking the violence with a campaign of propaganda, broadcast into Ukraine on Russian state channels, that depicts the government in Kiev as "fascists". 
 
 "Russia sometimes sounds as if it's refighting WW2. Fascism all over the place. Enemies everywhere. Ghosts of history mobilized," tweeted Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. 
 
 LIMITED SANCTIONS 
 
 However, so far Western concern has not been matched by any serious action that might dissuade Putin. The United States and the European Union have imposed limited sanctions on lists of individual Russians and small firms, but have held back from measures designed to hurt Russia's economy broadly. 
 
 Nonetheless, a senior finance ministry official in Moscow said Russian GDP could shrink again this quarter. 
 
 NATO has made clear it will not fight to protect Ukraine, instead beefing up defenses of its nearby member states. NATO's top military commander, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, said on Monday Russia had used special forces in eastern Ukraine and he now believed Moscow might be able to achieve its goals without resorting to a conventional invasion. 
 
 Western leaders have threatened to impose tougher sanctions on Russia if it interferes with presidential elections in Ukraine set for May 25, and most of their diplomacy has been centered around that date. 
 
 "If (the election) doesn't take place, there will be chaos and the risk of civil war," French President Francois Hollande said. "The Russians, Vladimir Putin, at the moment want this election not to happen so as to maintain the pressure. It's up to us to convince them." 
 
 Petro Poroshenko, a Ukrainian confectionery baron who is front-runner in the presidential election, said the vote would go ahead despite the unrest: "We hope that we will be able to complete the anti-terrorist operation before the election. And where we cannot do so - we will surround (those places) and not allow them to interfere with the election." 
 
 But Moscow has increasingly dismissed the prospect, suggesting it will not accept the winner of the vote any more than it accepts the interim government in power since February. 
 
 "Holding elections at a time when the army is deployed against part of the population is quite unusual," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper in Kiev and Randall Palmer in Ottawa; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood and Alastair Macdonald)
– The government in Kiev appears to have today blocked all international flights into, and many flights out of, the Ukraine's restive east in the wake of yesterday's violence and in anticipation of violence ahead of Friday's holiday commemorating World War II. At least 20 flights out of Kharkiv, the east's largest city, and Donetsk, the regional capital, have been canceled, the New York Times reports. Authorities also yesterday said they'd set up vehicle checkpoints around Kiev to guard against attacks. Kiev now estimates that 30 pro-Russian militants were killed in yesterday's fighting outside Slovyansk, along with four Ukrainian soldiers. The separatists also shot down a military helicopter there—the fourth they've notched in recent days—although both its pilots survived, the Washington Post and Guardian report. The government has also sent special forces to Odessa. As the situation intensifies, Western leaders are making some dire assessments: Germany's foreign minister warned that Ukraine is on the brink of outright war. "The bloody pictures from Odessa have shown us that we are just a few steps away from a military confrontation," he told reporters, noting that the conflict had reached a pitch "that a short time ago we would not have considered possible." Germany is advising its citizens—and particularly its journalists—to evacuate from Ukraine's south and east, the AP reports. The Council of Europe is meeting today in Vienna, though without much optimism. "You cannot expect miracles," Austria's foreign minister said, according to the BBC, but he said he expected the leaders to strongly back Ukraine's May 25 presidential election. Indeed, Francois Hollande warned in a television interview that should that election not take place "there would be chaos and the risk of civil war." At the moment, however, everything is quiet in the east and south, Reuters reports, as both sides bury their dead. "They shoot at us. Why? Because we don't want to live with fascists?" demanded one man at a Kramatorsk funeral for a woman allegedly killed by Ukrainian forces. At a pro-Ukrainian activist's funeral, meanwhile, one mourner lamented that "the government has failed to protect its own people."