BELBEK AIR BASE, Crimea: Pro-Russian forces stormed a Ukrainian air force base in Crimea, firing shots and smashing through concrete walls with armored personnel carriers, according to an Associated Press journalist. At least one person was wounded, the base commander said.

An APC also smashed open the front gate of the Belbek base near the port city of Sevastopol, according to footage provided by the Ukrainian Defense ministry. Two ambulances arrived and then departed shortly after. At least one of them was carrying what appeared to be a wounded person.

The Ukrainian commander of the base, Yuliy Mamchur, said there was at least one injury. He called his men together, they sang the Ukrainian national anthem and then stood at ease. He said they are going to turn over their weapons.

Russian forces have been seizing Ukrainian military facilities for several days in the Black Sea peninsula, which voted a week ago to secede and join Russia.

Elsewhere, more than 5,000 pro-Russia residents of a major city in Ukraine’s east demonstrated in favor of holding a referendum on whether to seek to split off and become part of Russia.

The rally in Donetsk came less than a week after the Ukrainian region of Crimea approved secession in a referendum regarded as illegitimate by the Western countries. After the referendum, Russia moved to formally annex Crimea.

With Crimea now effectively under the control of Russian forces, which ring Ukrainian military bases on the strategic Black Sea peninsula, concern is rising that Ukraine’s eastern regions will agitate for a similar move.

Germany on Saturday accused Russia of trying to splinter Europe as a Cold War-style struggle over the future of ex-Soviet Ukraine ratched up following the Kremlin’s defiant annexation of Crimea.

The haunting warning from a nation whose friendship Russian President Vladimir Putin had nurtured over his 14 years in power came amid Western efforts to shore up backing for the besieged interim leaders in Kiev who toppled a Kremlin-backed regime last month.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be the first leader from the G7 group of top industrialized powers to meet interim president Oleksandr Turchynov in Kiev since Crimea staged a contentious March 16 independence vote that saw Russia formally stake its claim to the Ukrainian peninsula on Friday.

The foreign minister of Germany — its economic power playing a decisive role in forging Europe’s response to Putin’s increasingly belligerent stance — warned that the continent’s entire future was at stake.

“The referendum in Crimea... is a violation of international law and an attempt to splinter Europe,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters after meeting Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

The show of diplomatic solidarity may play an important psychological role in Kiev as it faces new rounds of pressure by Russia that include open threats to throw Ukraine’s wheezing economy into convulsion by raising its gas rates and demanding colossal payments for disputed debts it could ill afford.

The biggest such signal from Europe came on Friday with the signing in Brussels of the very agreement on closer EU-Ukraine relations whose rejection by the Moscow-backed regime sparked three months of deadly protests that led to its February 22 fall.

The pact puts Ukraine on a firmer footing toward EU membership that the protesters — tired of corruption and Russian domination — sought and that Putin feared because of the doom it spelled for his dream of recreating a Kremlin-run empire of post-Soviet states.

The political deal should be followed months later by an economic agreement permanently lifting trade barriers and requiring Ukraine to undertake the structural changes needed to kickstart two decades of stuttering growth.

But Ukraine is unlikely to hear its calls for US and EU military support answered despite the hourly advances Russian troops and pro-Kremlin militia are making on the rebel Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.

Yatsenyuk said after his meeting with Steinmeier that “we discussed military and technological cooperation assistance” but reported no further progress.