KYIV. April 15 (Interfax) - An assembly, held in the central square of Slovyansk, a city in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, on Monday elected an organizing committee to coordinate the life of the territorial community, the online newspaper slavgorod writes.
The local Communist Party leader Anatoly Khmelevoy announced that the coordinating council will represent the interests of the more than 100,000 members of the local community, slavgorod said. The coordinating council will make decisions which the city council will not be able to make for reasons based on political bias, he said.
"We will coordinate the law enforcement services at our disposal, as well as the local authorities' decisions. We will act as intermediaries," Khmelevoy said.
Slovyansk self-defense forces commander Vyacheslav Ponomaryov read out an address to the Ukrainian leaders, to the people of Donbass and to the Russian authorities.
He said he represents the Donetsk people's republic and does not obey the Ukrainian authorities.
Ponomaryov urged Russian leadership "to pay attention to the current situation and to provide whatever assistance they can. "As a sign of unity of the fraternal peoples we are raising the flag of the Donetsk people's republic with the flag of the Russian Federation," he said.