KIEV, July 12. /TASS/. Ukraine’s extremist organisation, Right Sector, is not going to lay arms and will demonstrate its force to Kiev’s authorities, the organisation’s press secretary Artem Skoropadsky told a briefing on Sunday.
"Our leader Dmitry Yarosh have not ordered to lay arms, our soldiers will not do so," he said, adding the organisation had additional 17 battalions in reserve, which are training now before being sent to Donbass and "if necessary, they all will be by the presidential administration and by the interior ministry, and then the authorities will see what angry nationalists are like."
The press secretary said the nationalists would continue their protest rallies until Interior Minister Arsen Avakov is dismissed.
"In western Ukraine, the militia has been supervising smuggling for 20 years, and within the year of Avakov’s power the situation has not changed. Nor has it changed in the entire country. Lustration has not worked, corruption is booming. We are not going to be standing peacefully, we shall be talking to the power differently, toughly."
A representative of the Right Sector’s 13th battalion Alexei Byk said the weapon his soldiers had "is captured in the fighting in Donbass, and they are not going to report it to the authorities." The gunmen in Mukachevo had received additional weapons from their allies and retreated to the mountains, he added. Earlier he said the organisation’s forces were organising checkpoints around Mukachevo so that the government’s law enforcers could not send more force there.
Meanwhile, representatives of the law enforcers and of the Right Sector are trying to settle the conflict by negotiations. The organisation’s leader Dmitry Yarosh came to Mukachevo earlier on Sunday.
The Trans Carpathian Prosecutor’s Office said that three people were killed and another eleven wounded in the Mukachevo attack on Saturday, July 11. The Interior Ministry reported one civilian was among the dead. At the same time, the Right Sector said its two members were killed and another four were injured.
The prosecutors have described the incident in Mukachevo as a terror attack.
Shortly after that, President Poroshenko ordered the law enforcement agencies "to disarm and detain the criminals who opened fire and killed peaceful civilians in Mukachevo." The Right Sector has alerted its supporters.
Some 20 gunmen of the Right Sector group arrived at a cafe located on the territory of a sports complex controlled by Ukrainian MP Mikhail Lanyo on Saturday. Police and eyewitnesses said the gunmen had come for a meeting with Lanyo’s representatives to discuss the "redistribution of spheres of influence."
A conflict erupted between the talks, and the extremists later on opened fire from small arms on their opponents. The police arrived at the scene and tried to block the get-away route for the gunmen. In response, the gunmen opened fire using rifles, heavy machine guns and grenade launchers.
Breaking the police cordon, the Right Sector gunmen left the city by cars and burnt several police vehicles by opening fire from grenade launchers and also set on fire a traffic police checkpoint and a petrol station
The law enforcers, including special task force of the Interior Ministry and the Security Service, blocked the Right Sector gunmen in the wooded areas near Lavki.
The Right Sector’s members are blocking the presidential administration in Kiev and the organisation’s guards are near regional administrations in Lvov, Kharkov, Odessa, Zaporozhje and Nikolayev.