11:27:

Julian Marshall from BBC Newshour has been speaking to Vyacheslav Nikonov, a senior member of the Russian parliament, this morning. Mr Nikonov insisted Russia was not behind events in eastern Ukraine but said that some people involved in the takeover of government buildings could be Russian nationals. "Some people in eastern Ukraine do have Russian passports," he said.

He repeated accusations that American private security contractors were on the ground in Ukraine and warned that "if there is a bloody civil war, it will be very hard for Russia to really stay aside." He also accused Kiev of being "reckless" and "harmful" to Ukraine's interests. You can hear the full interview with Mr Nikonov on the BBC World Service at 1200GMT.

11:19:

Pro-Russian forces have now also taken control of the town council building in Mariupol in the Donetsk region, according to a Ukrainian news website. This would mean five towns or cities in eastern Ukraine have now had government buildings taken over by pro-Russians: Mariupol, Yenakiyeve, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka and Sloviansk.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27008054#TWEET1099396

There are unconfirmed reports from elsewhere that John Brennan has been in Kiev.

See :

A source in the Ukrainian parliament has told the Russian Interfax news agency that CIA's Director John Brennan has recently visited Ukraine's capital Kiev and had several meetings with representatives of Ukraine's power-wielding agencies.

The person who said this to Interfax in a phone talk added that John Brennan came to Ukraine not under his real name.

According to some yet unconfirmed information, the decision to suppress protesters in Slavyansk, a city in Ukraine's east, with force was advised to Ukraine's authorities by Brennan.

However, Interfax does not have any confirmation from any official sources that this is really so.

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_13/CIAs-head-has-come-to-Ukraine-to-instruct-power-agencies-unofficial-source-6354/

(Reuters) - One Ukrainian state security officer was killed and five others were wounded on the side of government forces in an "anti-terrorist" operation on Sunday against pro-Russian separatist militants in a city in the east, the interior minister said.

On the side of the separatists there had been an "unidentifiable number" of casualties during the operation in the town of Slaviansk, the minister, Arsen Avakov, said on his Facebook page.

"There were dead and wounded on both sides," Avakov said.

About 1,000 people were giving support to the separatists, he added.

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine-abroad/reuters-one-ukrainian-state-security-officer-killed-5-others-wounded-343280.html

http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-506851/

In addition to the dead and wounded at the police station, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported one person was killed and four others wounded in a gunfight at a checkpoint that appeared to have been set up by pro-Russian forces along the road leading from Slovyansk to the regional capital of Donetsk.

The bloody standoff comes as Kiev faces increasing unrest in the eastern, majority ethnic Russian part of the country that had been the base of support for recently ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. Ukraine’s new government and the West have accused Russia of helping instigate the protests.

On Saturday, pro-Russian mobs–some in unmarked, military-style uniforms and carrying military weapons–attacked government buildings in at least seven cities in the Donetsk region, many of them the site of key railways stations, road junctions or airports. Local Ukrainian news outlets reported Sunday that protests had spread to at least two other cities, Kharkiv and Mariupol, that lie outside of the region.

A week earlier, pro-Russian vigilantes seized control of government buildings in Donetsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk, demanding a referendum be held on granting the region more autonomy. The men were later driven out of Kharkiv and Ukrainian officials say negotiations have been ongoing to end the standoff in the other two cities.

Less diplomatic version of:

They were adopted by Russia in 1991 and never supplied, as far as I can see reported, to Ukraine.

They were carried by the "self-defence forces" in Crimea, who wore the same uniforms--the same knit balaclavas, the same accessories on the same belts.

Neatly a prominent Crimean politician--name didn't stick in my mind--proudly proclaimed that the "liberation" of SE Ukraine is occurring, which with then spread across the south to Odessa. With that "Ukraine federation" joining with Belorus and Russia in the end. The regions he cited had well over 50% ethnic Ukrainian population, but some of them were a bit less than 50% speakers of Ukrainian as their "native language". Some were over 50% with Ukrainian as native language, so he wasn't just looking at Russian-speaking populations and "weighting" the Ukrainians as about 3/5 of a person. (That actually gets the right results, however humorous or sardonic it may seem.)

If he sends troops into Ukraine to protect the ethnic Russians in the east, that will probably trigger a military response from the US and its EU allies.

I assume covering more than just Slavyansk/Sloviansk.

This is at least the second fatal gunfire incident in what is beginning to look like a region-wide uprising:

Earlier on Sunday, a gun flight reportedly broke out at a checkpoint, which was established by protesters on the outskirts of the city of Slavyansk.

Reports on those killed and wounded kept streaming in all day, but lacked consistency and could not be independently verified. According to interim Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, one of the troops from Kiev was killed and five others were injured in the skirmish.

Protesters in Slavyansk said one person was killed and two others injured on their side, adding that two of the Kiev troops were killed.

Read more at: http://rt.com/news/donetsk-kharkov-protest-ukraine-280/

Easier for me to follow.