KIEV, July 14. /TASS/. The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine has charged four detained participants of a shootout in the city of Mukachevo in Ukraine’s southwestern Transcarpathian Region, an office spokesman said at a briefing Tuesday.
"Four people detained after the incident in Mukachevo have been charged. Two of them are in a Kiev hospital," the spokesman said on the 112 Ukraina television channel.
The Prosecutor General’s website said prejudicial inquiry is conducted "on cases of establishment of and participation in a criminal organization with the purpose of committing serious and extremely serious crimes, as well as committing terrorist acts that entailed grave consequences."
The Prosecutor General’s Office spokesman said "investigative activities are currently conducted, a number of expert examinations have been set, the issue of passing the request for the preventive measure to court is being addressed."
He said the operation to detain the remaining participants of the shootout is continuing around Mukachevo.
Earlier, spokeswoman for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Yelena Gitlyanskaya said the SBU conducted over 40 searches at all sides of the conflict in Mukachevo, during which a great amount of weapons and ammunition was discovered and seized.
According to Transcarpathian media, Right Sector extremist organization roadblocks are still installed at the entrance to Mukachevo. The extremists say they control the situation in the city. The Kiev-Chop highway has been blocked for a fourth day in Mukachevo.
Shootout in Mukachevo
On Saturday, July 11, in the city of Mukachevo, some 20 militants of the Right Sector extremist organization, banned in Russia, during a conflict with their opponents with whom they discussed "distribution of influence areas", opened fire from small arms.
The extremists then opened fire from assault rifles, heavy machineguns and grenade launchers at police officers who arrived at the site, destroyed several police vehicles, as well as set on fire a traffic police checkpoint and a filling station. Three people were killed, and another 11 were wounded. Prosecutors classified what happened in Mukachevo as a terrorist attack.
After a coup occurred in Ukraine in February 2014, mass protests soon erupted in Ukraine’s southeast, where local residents, mostly Russian speakers, did not recognize the coup-imposed authorities, formed militias and started fighting for their rights.
In response, Kiev in April 2014 announced the start of "an antiterrorism operation" in east Ukraine, which involved the Armed Forces, the Interior Ministry’s National Guard and volunteer battalions made up of Euromaidan activists, many of whom hold far-right and neo-Nazi views.
Ukrainian troops have been engaged in fierce fighting with local militias during Kiev’s punitive operation, underway since mid-April 2014, against the breakaway territories - the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics constituting parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
Massive shelling of residential neighborhoods, including with the use of aviation, has killed thousands and led to a humanitarian disaster in the area.
Kiev has regularly violated the ceasefire regime imposed as part of the Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk agreements.
The Package (Minsk-2) was signed on February 12, 2015 in the Belarusian capital Minsk by participants of the Contact Group on settlement in Donbas. In line with the document, cannon artillery with calibers of 100 millimeters and more was to be withdrawn from the disengagement line to a distance of 50 kilometers.