(VOVworld) – Tension has continued in eastern and southern Ukraine after 5 people were killed in clashes between the army and protesters. Militants and armored vehicles of the self-defense units on Friday redeployed to the city’s downtown areas, surrounding administrative offices to push back strong attempts by government forces.

Ukrainian special force in the Eastern city of Slavyansk on April 24th (Photo: AFP)

UN Chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday called on all parties to be restrained and retaliatory violence. Meanwhile, Russia and the US continued to criticize each other for the complicated situation in Ukraine. Moscow accused the US of releasing groundless statements on the Ukrainian crisis stressing that the only solution now was for Ukraine’s acting Kiev government to comply with the multilateral agreement recently reached in Geneva. Washington warned that Russia was making a grave mistake and had to pay a high price for that. On the same day, Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin spoke on Rossiya-1 TV station, saying that the UN Security Council was divided over the Ukraine situation. He said Russia was likely to propose an urgent meeting at the UN Security Council if the situation did not improve.