KYIV -- Authorities in Ukraine have detained a group of people suspected of planning violent public acts across the country, including in the capital, Kyiv.
Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy told reporters in Kyiv on January 31 that the suspects had been apprehended a day earlier. He did not give the exact number of suspects detained.
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"Their plan was to organize a protest action of up to 5,000 people and destabilize the situation in Ukraine via violent attacks against law enforcement and people participating in the demonstration," Monastyrskiy said, adding that up to 1,500 people planned to ignite clashes between protesters and police.
Monastyrskiy added that law enforcement uncovered plans that showed a group of medical personnel was prepared to arrive at the planned clashes and make sure wounds suffered by the fake activists were shown on television channels.
Monastyrskiy compared the "planned demonstrations by the group" with demonstrations held in 2014 in Crimea before it was illegally annexed by Russia, and in eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, some parts of which have been under the control of Russia-backed separatists since then.
The minister said Ukrainian investigators are currently looking to see if there was a link between the detained group and Russia's secret services.
The chief of the National Police, Ihor Klymenko, told journalists at the same press conference that the alleged organizer of the event and a person suspected of being his assistant were among those detained. The two suspects are Ukrainian citizens, he added.
Klymenko also said that the group had received more than 1 million hryvnyas ($34,500) as a partial payment from the people who ordered the disturbances, the first of which was supposed to be held in front of the Ukrainian president’s office in Kyiv on January 31.
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"We are currently working on finding who ordered the disturbances and who could be the final beneficiaries of them. We do realize, however, who would be interested in destabilizing the situation in Ukraine," Klymenko said.
The press conference was held amid concerns in Ukraine and the West about a possible wide-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which has concentrated more than 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border.
U.S. officials said earlier that Russia might organize incidents of sabotage and be in involved in efforts to destabilize the internal situation in Ukraine.