MOSCOW, April 14, 23:54 /ITAR-TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin urged his US counterpart Barack Obama in a phone conversation to use the American side’s capabilities in full to prevent the use of force and a bloodshed in Ukraine, the Kremlin said Monday.

“The Russian side stressed that protest rallies in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Sloviansk and other cities of the Ukrainian Southeast are a result of the Kiev leadership’s unwillingness and inability to take into account the interests of the Russian and Russian speaking population,” the Kremlin said.

Protests against the new self-proclaimed Ukrainian authorities, who came to power as a result of a coup in February, have erupted in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern territories, namely the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, with demonstrators demanding referendums on the country’s federalization.