Afghanistan: Pro-Russian gunmen take over eastern Ukrainian city’s police headquarters --- MOSCOW — Violence flared in eastern Ukraine on Saturday as pro-Russian gunmen occupied a police headquarters in a small city and attacked government buildings in several towns nearby. -- The government convened an emergency meeting late in the day to discuss the unrest, which the country’s acting interior minister said was evidence of “aggression from Russia.” -- To Ukrainian officials it looked like the beginning of a replay of the Crimea takeover by Russia, which began with men in unmarked uniforms storming the regional parliament, then spreading their control throughout the peninsula. -- Saturday’s action involved only a few dozen men, but the simultaneous assaults in various places — and the modern weapons the men were carrying — suggested a coordinated operation. -- A senior State Department official said that during a call Saturday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Secretary of State John F. Kerry “made clear that if Russia did not take steps to de-escalate in eastern Ukraine and move its troops back from Ukraine’s border, there would be additional consequences.” --- The spokesman said Kerry expressed strong concern to Lavrov that Saturday’s attacks were orchestrated and synchronized and that “militants were equipped with specialized Russian weapons and the same uniforms as those worn by the Russian forces that invaded Crimea.”