Attacks on police and security service buildings in eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian gunmen bore "tell-tale signs of Moscow's involvement," the US envoy to the United Nations says.
Speaking on ABC television's This Week program, Ambassador Samantha Power on Sunday dismissed suggestions the attacks, which have triggered gun battles with Ukrainian special forces, were the work of grass-roots militia groups.
"It's professional, co-ordinated. Nothing grassroots about it," Power said.
"The forces are doing in each of the six or seven cities they have been active in exactly the same thing. So, certainly, it bears the tell-tale signs of Moscow's involvement."
At least two people were killed and nine wounded in fighting on Sunday that has threatened to scupper the first international talks on the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War.
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The clashes across the ex-Soviet state's separatist eastern rust belt broke out a day after masked gunmen stormed a series of police and security service buildings in co-ordinated raids that Kiev blamed on the "provocative activities of Russian special services".
It was the latest development in a crisis that has escalated since Western-backed leaders rose to power in February on the back of bloody protests against the old regime's decision to reject an alliance with the European Union and look for future assistance from the Kremlin.
