Kiev boosts security measures in southeast of Ukraine ahead of May holidays

Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has charged the Security Service of Ukraine, the Interior Ministry, and the National Guard to increase security measures in public places in some towns.

 “I request enhancing the street patrols of police and National Guard officers in the near front regions -  Zaporozhe, Nikolayev, Odessa, Kharkov,” Yatsenyuk said in a conference call.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, in turn, confirmed that Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkov, and Zaporozhe are the “key areas” of enhanced patrol. “We will provide 20,000 patrol officers additionally. Together with the military and the National Guard, we are ready to fulfill our duty,” he said.

Nearly one thousand of security officers, among them are militia and armed volunteer groups, will be sent to Odessa from other regions, Ivan Katerynchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's main department in Odessa, told reporters, today.

He said 3.3 thousand of law-enforcers will be patrolling in Odessa during the May Holidays, of which about 1,000 officers and volunteers will be brought from other regions. Katerynchuk said the marine infantry battalion and 15 armored vehicles KAMAZ will be involved as well.

Earlier, on April 10, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said in Odessa that Ukraine’s Security Service detained “about 50 criminals” in the Black Sea port city of Odessa and the Odessa region. The president claimed those people "were plotting terrorist acts overnight from May 1 to 2" when Odessa will be marking the anniversary of the tragic events in the city.

To recap, on May 2, 2014, the Right Sector militants and the so-called “Maidan self-defense” forces set on fire the tent camp the Odessa residents organized to launch a signature campaign in support of the referendum on federalization. Afterwards, they set on fire the Trade Union as the anti-Maidan activists rallying in the square barricaded themselves inside the building.  A total of 46 people died in Odessa’s violence and almost 200 others were injured.