KIEV, July 14. /TASS/. The events of the past days in Transcarpathia and Lviv are connected and testify to dangerous destabilization in Ukraine, Ruslan Bortnik, the director of the Ukrainian Institute of Policy Analysis and Management, told a TASS correspondent.
"It’s absolutely logical to link these events. We are now witnessing a regular stage of creation of controlled destabilization in Ukraine," Bortnik said.
He said it does not mean at all that one certain political force is behind all that. "All political forces and participants of political processes inside the country are to this or that extent interested in that destabilization, except for the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front," he said.
This could be explained by the fact that destabilization in the country "was actually provoked by the authorities, who have so far failed to resolve the conflict in the east, having introduced amendments to Ukraine’s Constitution, in which many see an attempt to usurp [power by the president]."
"Introducing the law on local elections, which cuts all ‘Maidan’ parties, new political projects, left and right forces from the legal political field, the authorities actually pulled the pin out of this ‘grenade’, and the question is only how and when it will explode," Bortnik warned.
In this connection, the expert forecasted continuation of destabilization processes in Ukraine in the future.
"This tendency will continue in fall and winter, because it is connected with the entire complex of political problems, political aggravation and the deepest crisis of confidence between Ukrainian political elites," he said.
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Shootout in Mukachevo
On Saturday, July 11, in the city of Mukachevo in Ukraine’s southwestern Transcarpathian Region, 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 opened fire 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.
Explosions in Lviv
Two explosions occurred in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Tuesday. In the morning, a police lieutenant got blown up on a booby trap when he was opening the door of a police station. The law enforcer was hospitalized with fragmentation wounds.
Later, another blast occurred in front of a police office, leaving a 31-year-old police officer wounded. She was hospitalized.
Situation in Ukraine
A coup occurred in Ukraine in February 2014. Mass protests soon erupted in Ukraine’s southeast, where local residents did not recognize the coup-imposed authorities, formed militias and started fighting for their rights.
Ukrainian troops have been engaged in fierce fighting with local militias during Kiev’s military 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. The clashes have killed thousands.