MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has ordered to deploy additional police patrols to maintain public order in Odessa after a request of the southern Ukrainian region Governor Mikhail Saakashvili.
"The president has ordered the chief of national police and the head of the National Guard to send to Odessa additional units of up to 1,000 people to maintain pubic order in the city," Saakashvili wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Odessa region governor warned Poroshenko about the danger of the country’s split and called on the authorities to send units of the National Guard to the territory of the region.
Saakashvili’s statement came after riots early on Tuesday outside the Odessa city council where a group of unknown men attacked activists demanding the resignation of the city mayor Gennady Trukhanov. Police managed to end the riots and arrested five people for hooliganism.
The governor said the incident occurred due to the unsatisfactory work of Ukraine’s Security Service accusing its staff of attempting to discredit the team of reformers and collecting data against Saakashvili and others.