This is an interesting summary article by Luke Harding, Guardian reporter, who is on the ground in Eastern Ukraine.
What was meant to be a show of strength by Ukraine's army has instead shown how the country is unravelling
For Kiev's beleaguered army it was meant to be a display of strength. Early on Wednesday a column of six armoured personnel carriers trundled through the town of Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine. Some 24 hours earlier Ukrainian soldiers had recaptured a small disused aerodrome. Their next target appeared to be Slavyansk, the neighbouring town, occupied by a shadowy Russian militia. Was victory close?
The column didn't get far. At Kramatorsk's railway junction, next to an open-air market and a shop selling building materials, an angry crowd caught up with it. Next armed separatists dressed in military fatigues turned up too. Within minutes the Ukrainian soldiers gave up. Without a shot being fired they abandoned their vehicles. The pro-Russian gunmen grabbed them. They raised a Russian tricolour. They sat on top and went for a victory spin.
In theory this was happening in Ukraine, under the control of a pro-western government in Kiev, and several hundred kilometres from the Russian border. In reality large chunks of the east of the country are now in open revolt. Ukraine is rapidly vanishing as a sovereign state. Its army is falling apart. What happens next is unclear. But the Kremlin can either annexe the east, as it did Crimea, again shrugging off western outrage. Or it can pull the strings of a new post-Kiev puppet entity.
This febrile anti-Kiev mood has acquired a momentum that increasingly seems unstoppable. A vocal section of the population appears to support the protesters' key demand for a referendum on Ukraine's federalisation. A "people's governor" has been appointed – though it is not clear by whom. Many local politicians, the security services in key eastern towns and the police appear to have gone over to the anti-government side. Kiev's powerlessness in this fast-moving drama seems absolute.
That is a report from someone who is there. It sounds as though the scales have been tipping in Eastern Ukraine. The men sent out as soldiers of the government in Kiev seem to have no will to shoot at the local protesters. It sounds like there are too many of them to be all Russian plants.
Yesterday there were reports of nationalist protesters in Kiev demanding the resignation of the interim government. It really does sound like a country that has crossed to line into civil war and a government that is completely losing control of the situation.