DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukraine’s interim government has dispatched a special police unit to Odessa to help restore order there after pro-Russian militants attacked a police station and freed 67 of their allies who had been detained during violent clashes that claimed 46 lives, its top security official said Monday.
Three days after violence spread to the country’s third-largest city, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the Kiev-1 police battalion had arrived in Odessa to calm tensions that spiked when local police were unable — or unwilling — to control pro-Russian mobs. Avakov, in a posting on his Facebook page Monday, said the failure of the local police to keep order in Odessa was an “outrage” and possibly criminal in nature.
The special police unit, he said, was recently formed with the assistance of “citizen activists,” presumably to ensure its loyalty to the acting government. Avakov also said the entire leadership of the local police had been dismissed, and he pledged an investigation of their role in the violence.
As questions arose about the effectiveness and loyalty of the police in restive areas of the country, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said the government was forming special police units and reshuffling the leadership of several local police forces. He also said that the National Guard would continue military operations in an effort to quell separatist violence in southeastern Ukraine..........http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ukraine-sends-police-unit-to-odessa-to-restore-order-after-separatists-raid-police-station/2014/05/05/f5c34f9e-d435-11e3-8a78-8fe50322a72c_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage
5/5/14
--
-
No comments:
Post a Comment
Only News