The Security Service of Ukraine has detained 29 people in Odessa accused of plotting political assassinations as part of a wider scheme to destabilize the region, the head of the agency announced.
“As of today there are 29 people (in custody), most of them are Ukrainian citizens,” Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said at a briefing on April 9.
“They were preparing for ordered political killings … to begin seizing the territory and splitting Odessa off from Ukraine,” Nalyvaichenko said, adding that the suspects had planned to kill a local lawmaker and several activists.
Four of those detained were “from an illegal separatist-terrorist organization that has begun carrying out guerrilla attacks and crimes on the territory of Odessa and the Odessa region,” he said.
“This is not the end, it will be continued. I can confirm that apart from those individuals who prepared to carry out contract killings of politicians and rights activists, we also detained militants and veterans from other wars, like the Afghan war, and there is even a diver (among those arrested), “Nalyvaichenko said.
The identities of those arrested have not been disclosed.
The Black Sea port of Odessa has been the scene of numerous explosions and acts of sabotage in the past year, triggering fears of a separatist campaign to destabilize and seize the region.
A string of such attacks in December and January saw a volunteer center helping Ukrainian soldiers destroyed, railway transportation shut down after a bombing at a rail yard, and at least one person killed when a blast struck a suburb.
The biggest attack took place in May 2014, when 48 people were killed in Odessa’s Trade Union House.
Police have classified all such incidents as terrorist attacks.
