In the eastern city of Donetsk, protesters hung a huge banner declaring a government office building to be the "People's Republic of Donetsk."
These pro-Moscow activists want to pull away from Europe and align Ukraine more with Russia. The protests in Donetsk and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine are the focus of the ongoing crisis in the country and it has international repercussions that reach well beyond the country's borders.
Yet life in the rest of Donetsk is going on completely as normal.
The occupied government building in the center of town is surrounded by razor wire and sandbags. It feels like the kind of place where nothing will happen unless, suddenly, something dramatic does.
Young men wearing face masks spend all day walking back and forth, carrying metal pipes. Molotov cocktails sit unused behind stacks of tires. It's calm, but the activists seem pretty tightly wound up.
A skinny young guy with a wispy moustache and a black stocking cap demands to see our papers. He says his name is Vadim, and he wants eastern Ukraine to join Russia.
Asked if he expects an attack, he responds, "We've been informed that it will happen."
He says this information has come from "higher up the chain of command," adding, that if attacked, "we will defend ourselves to the end."
When asked about the weapons he and his fellow activists have, he describes that as "private information."
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