KIEV (Reuters) - The Ukrainian soldiers manning a checkpoint in the restive east gladly accepted the gifts of food and drink, a kind thought it seemed by local well-wishers. Twenty minutes later they had all fallen into a deep sleep, helpless to resist pro-Russian rebels who bundled them and their guns into three cars and spirited them away.
Deputy defence minister Ihor Kabanenko deplored the rebels' "dirty tactics"; but, peculiarly humiliating and unusual as it may have been, the incident gave some flavour of problems facing ill-prepared and poorly led security forces.
