At 4.37a.m. on May 9 cables were set on fire between the Kyiv TV tower and the National TV and Radio Company building. Nearly 1km of the cables was destroyed, the main cables of Inter and Pershyi Natsionalnyi (The First National TV Channel), the most popular nationwide TV channels, were damaged.
The channels were temporarily shut down but transferred to reserve lines later and resumed the broadcasting. The prosecutor of the Shevchenkivsky District in Kyiv launched an investigation of the fire on telecommunication cables in the collector located between the Kyiv TV tower and the National TV and Radio Company. The prosecutor qualifies the fire as subversion.
On May 9, separatists intensified their actions in Mariupol again, a shootout took place.
The building of the city police department was caught on fire.
Separatists began to build barricades on the central streets. As a result of the shootout, nearly 20 terrorists were killed, 4 detained. 5 Ukrainian police officers were injured, one killed. According to later reports, Valeriy Androshchuk, head of the Mariupol police, was kidnapped by terrorists.
Donetsk Oblast State Administration Health Care Department later reported of 7 people killed and 39 injured.
In downtown Luhansk where a Victory Day rally was taking place, people were handed out the flags of the “Luhansk People’s Republic”. Some participants held Russian flags and black and orange striped flags resembling the St. George ribbon.
Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov announced that Ukraine had neutralized provocations on May 9.
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Sevastopol on May 9. During his visit to Crimea, he awarded the self-proclaimed Crimean premier Sergei Aksionov an order For Merit to the Fatherland.
Ex-Party of Regions MP Oleh Tsariov bailed out a coordinator of pro-Russian separatists, Kostiantyn Dolgov, in Kharkiv, from the pre-trial detention center.
On May 9, several civilians were shot at.
A 12-year old boy was injured in downtown Sloviansk. A family of three was shot at with machine guns when crossing the separatist checkpoint in Luhansk Oblast. The parents, mother and father, were killed. Their 10-year old daughter was severely injured. An orthodox priest was shot dead by separatists at the checkpoint in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk Oblast.
Separatists in Kharkiv refused to hold a referendum. “We are not ready to hold the referendum on May 11. We have not agreed on common issues for Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk. Unfortunately, we had different formulations. Therefore, we decided to not hold the May 11 referendum,” Yuriy Altukhin, member of the coordination council for the South-East movement, said.
