It emerged by 9.20 p.m. that 125 people have been injured and one killed in clashes outside the Verkhovna Rada building, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said.
“By 9.20 p.m. – 125 injured (six critical) and one dead,” the minister wrote on his Twitter on Aug. 31.
On Aug. 31 265 Verkhovna Rada members voted for the presidential bill proposing power decentralization changes to the country’s Fundamental Law.
Shortly afterwards clashes began outside the parliamentary building between opponents of the bill and law enforcement officers. As a result of clashes and a thrown grenade one conscript soldier from the National Guard was killed. There are media representatives among those injured.
Avakov has accused the Svoboda All-Ukrainian Association and its leader Oleh Tiahnybok as the Monday clashes. “”I directly accuse Oleh Tiahnybok and his Svoboda party. I consider it a crime, not a political position,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.
For his part, Tiahnybok said: “That Avakov so promptly ‘appointed the responsible’ attests to one thing: he was the one who planned the provocation.”
