Beleaguered Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk promises regions more autonomy

Ukraine's embattled premier yesterday vowed to give more powers to the regions in an effort to stamp out a separatist insurgency, as a gas war with Russia threatened European supplies.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's promise during an unannounced visit to the blue-collar coal mining region of Donetsk came as militants armed with Kalashnikovs barricaded themselves inside the local administration building and demanded a referendum on joining Russia.

A similar occupation of the state security office of the hardscrabble eastern city of Lugansk has confronted the untested leaders with their biggest challenge since their February ousting of a Kremlin-backed president and decision to strike an alliance with the West.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin - his troops already massed along Ukraine's eastern frontier following their seizure of Crimea - only upped the stakes on Thursday by threatening to cut off Ukraine's gas over unpaid bills.

That could limit the supplies of at least 18 European nations for the third time since 2006. Each of the previous interruptions also coincided with attempts by Kiev to pull itself out of the Kremlin's historic sphere of influence.

Russia has already increased the price it charges Ukraine for gas by 81 per cent and demanded the country rewrite its constitution to give eastern regions the right to set their own economic and diplomatic relations with Moscow.

The Kremlin's emphatic response to its possible loss of control over the neighbouring nation of 46 million has plunged its relations with the West to post-cold war lows and forced Nato to boost the defence of former Soviet satellite states.