"If people lay down their arms and free the administration buildings... we guarantee that we will not launch any criminal proceedings against them. I am ready to formalise this in a presidential decree," acting President Oleksandr Turchynov told lawmakers.
The pressure on Kiev's interim leaders -- already faced with a punitive 80-percent hike in the price they have to pay for Russian gas -- mounted still further when pro-Kremlin militants seized several state buildings and proclaimed their independence.
The standoff now revolves around the administration centre in the bustling industrial city of Donetsk and the security service headquarters of Ukraine's eastern-most region of Lugansk.
The Donetsk activists have already pronounced the creation of their own "sovereign republic" while the their Lugansk counterparts have broken into the security building's weapons cache and are now armed with dozens of machine guns.
