Seven criminal cases have been opened into a recent exchange of fire in Mukacheve, in Zakarpattia Oblast of Ukraine on July 11, said Yuriy Tandit, an advisor to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) chief.
“Seven criminal cases have now been opened. When all this began, SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak guaranteed that the investigation would be conducted openly and fairly. We guaranteed the security of the four people whom we detained and who are in Kyiv now. A criminal investigation will be conducted here in line with the law,” Tandit said on Channel Five television.
It was reported earlier that Mukacheve had seen an exchange of fire on July 11, which involved people close to the parliamentarian Mykhailo Lanio, local policemen, and members of the nationalistic party the Right Sector banned in Russia. Various reports suggested that two or three people were killed and up to 14 others injured in the skirmish.
The Interior Ministry reported that about ten Right Sector fighters had earlier hid in a forested area around Mukacheve, and two were hospitalized. The Security Service (SBU) reported on July 16 that six other armed members of the Right Sector were to be hunted in the Mukacheve district.
According to the Right Sector’s account, the exchange of fire had been provoked by criminal elements led by Lanio, whose smuggling channel they had blocked.
At the same time, a number of media outlets reported that the conflict had been prompted by the desire to reshape the spheres of influence in patronizing contraband flows in the region, particularly those of cigarettes. One theory suggests that the Right Sector challenged a gang informally patronized by Lanio. According to another, the Right Sector acted with the same intentions but in parliamentarian Viktor Baloha’s interests.
The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada voted on July 14 to set up an ad hoc investigative commission to investigate the conflict in Mukacheve.
