Odessa, January 03 (PolitNavigator, Victoria Litovchenko) – In Odessa, a large number of well-equipped, armed people in KrAZ trucks arrived at the railway station.
According to the edition "The Duma", at least two columns entered the city: from the direction of Tairov and through the village of Kotovsky.
As the press service of the Odessa police explained, “the machine gunners who frightened the townspeople are members of the National Guard who will take part in the anti-terrorist operational and preventive training of the city.”
“They will patrol the streets together with the police, the special battalion (formerly Berkut), the State Security Service, the traffic police and other security forces,” said the head of the service, Vladimir Shablienko.
As PolitNavigator reported, Earlier, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the start of anti-terrorist measures. While on duty, police officers will stop and check suspicious persons and search personal belongings, Odessa police officers informed.
A few days ago, Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexey Goncharenko from the “Poroshenko Bloc” stated that Kyiv retained control over Odessa only thanks to the position of pro-Ukrainian forces, which on May 2 did not allow pro-Russian citizens to organize a “Russian spring” there.
“Odessa was the first city to repel the separatists. On the second of May in Odessa, when there was an attempt to disperse the pro-Ukrainian march and seize the Regional State Administration, it was stopped not by the police, not by the SBU, not by the National Guard, but by ordinary Odessa residents who went to the city center. And this is very important,” said Goncharenko.
In October, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko denied the possibility of the militia moving towards Odessa. According to him, Odessa began to be called “Bandera’s city” in Western and Russian media.