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Cleaners sweep away bullet cases as they remove a barricade erected by pro-Russian protesters in Donetsk. Photo: Reuters

Ukraine crisis: full coverage

Donetsk: Ukrainian police cleared pro-Moscow protesters from a regional administration building in a lightning night-time operation, but others held out in two more eastern cities on Tuesday in what Kiev says is a Russian-led plan to dismember the country.

Shots were fired, a grenade thrown and 70 people detained as officers ended the occupation in the city of Kharkiv during an 18 minute "anti-terrorism" action, the interior ministry said.

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But elsewhere in Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking industrial heartland, activists armed with Kalashnikov rifles and protected by barbed wire barricades vowed there was no going back on their demand - a vote on returning to Moscow rule.

In the city of Luhansk, a man dressed in camouflage told a crowd outside an occupied state security building: "We want a referendum on the status of Luhansk and we want Russian returned as an official language."

US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia of mounting an "illegal, illegitimate effort to destabilise a sovereign state". Photo: AP

"We will not let fascism pass," he shouted, leading the crowd in chants of "Russia! Russia!"

Ukraine says the seizure of public buildings in eastern regions on Sunday night is a replay of events in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow annexed last month after a referendum staged when Russian troops were already in control.

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Ukraine clears occupied building as Kerry warns Russians sent to foment 'chaos'