Police special operations units and Maidan self-defense groups have encircled the Dnipro hotel, located in the center of Kyiv, which houses the headquarters of the Right Sector ultra-nationalistic movement, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.
Senior police officers and high-ranking representatives of the Ukrainian Security Service are currently holding negotiations with Right Sector leaders in an attempt to persuade them to surrender their weapons.
This measure was taken in response to an incident, which occurred near the Dnipro hotel on Monday evening, when a Right Sector member wounded three people, including Kyiv city administration deputy head Bohdan Dubas. The attacker was subsequently detained and placed in the Ukrainian Security Service’s pre-trial detention center.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on his Facebook page: “The Dnipro hotel has been sealed off. Measures are being taken in order to prevent any accidental victims. All the people who are now inside the hotel holding illegal weapons have been asked to surrender these weapons.”
Avakov identified the suspected Right Sector member as Andriy Koziubchyk, born in 1981.
One of the persons is now in critical condition after sustaining three gunshot wounds and suffering heavy blood loss as a result of the attack, he said.
