The State Security Service (SBU), Ukraine’s KGB-successor agency, is investigating an unspecified number of unnamed politicians for “attempting to seize state power,” its official website states.
The
vague statement said that a pre-trial investigation was opened on suspicion of “forceful
seizure of power.” Today, protesters succeeded in barricading a part of the
Cabinet building and last week they seized the Kyiv City Hall and main Trade
Union building.
Earlier
today, the interior
ministry specifically named Batkivshchyna lawmaker Serhiy Pashinsky as one
among several Batkivshchyna lawmakers that have called on people to storm state
government buildings. In the same statement, it noted that 200 young men were
spotted heading toward the Presidential Administration equipped with gas cans,
sticks, Molotov cocktails and masks.
Previously, Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara said that Batkivshchyna leader Arseniy Yatseniuk instigated people to take over government buildings.
The opposition, on the other hand, warned that the government is preparing to introduce martial law in the country.
The National Headquarters of Resistance, the political
opposition coordinating body of the pro-European rally, said it received
reliable intelligence from the Dec. 6 meeting in Sochi between Presidents Vladimir
Putin and Viktor Yanukovych, and are worried that a curfew will be introduced
in Ukraine in a declaration of martial law.
“As a condition for providing (financial)
assistance to the Yanukovych regime, the Kremlin introduced the condition of ‘bringing
order to Ukraine,’ which means introducing a state of emergency and cruel
suppression of mass protest actions,” their statement said.
“Introducing a state of emergency
means an encroachment on the rights and freedoms of citizens: introduction of
curfew, searches of residences of citizens without a court order, introduction
of censorship, limitation of the use of internet and a ban on mass actions and
strikes,” the opposition warned.
The NHR
said that in case the president introduces a state of emergency, they will
consider the president, the Cabinet and other power organs illegitimate and
“will be forces to take the responsibility for the situation in the country.”
It also
urged Ukrainians to massively arrive to Kyiv in this case “to defend the
Constitution and fight back.”
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
