Pro-Russian movements are continuing in Eastern Ukraine. (Mstyslav Chernov/Wikimedia Commons)

The announcement was posted on YouTube and delivered by a spokesperson for the pro-Russian group. The spokesman, speaking to a supportive crowd in Donetsk declared, “Seeking to create a popular, legitimate, sovereign state, I proclaim the creation for the sovereign state of the People’s Republic of Donetsk,” according to The Guardian. 

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Acting Ukrainian president Olexsandr Turchynov called the pro-Russian separatist movements evidence of a “second stage” of Russian operations “playing out the crimea scenario.” 

“The plan is to destabilize the situation, the plan is of foreign troops to cross the border and seize the country’s territory, which we will not allow,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk told The Guardian at an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday.