You're reading: Law enforcers not pursuing Yanukovych rigorously in Crimea to avoid conflict

One of the reasons why no tough steps have been made to find and arrest Viktor Yanukovych in Crimea was the desire by senior law enforcement officials to avoid armed conflicts, Ukraine's Acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.

“I think we must not allow any military standoff or conflict to
happen. I shall be extremely candid with you: it was one of the reasons
why on the night when Valentyn Nalyvaichenko (the head of the Ukrainian
Security Council) and I were in Sevastopol, in Crimea, we chose not to
continue tough actions with respect of Viktor Yanukovych… Because at
that moment we knew it was essentially an affront for armed conflict
with grounds for foreign forces to interfere in this conflict… We made
the decision that the future of Crimea is more important for us than the
situation with Yanukovych,” he told a press conference on Wednesday.