MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentary faction Serhiy Leshchenko has said that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is pressing of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) traders, and thanks to this the LPG market in Ukraine has been monopolized.

The lawmakers said at a briefing on Tuesday that due to the demands of the SBU to impose sanctions on LPG traders at the end of 2016 and at the start of 2017 have resulted in the fact that this business was halted for three months and a half and the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine and the Economic Development and Trade Ministry did not interfere in the situation.

"This was the systemic attack on traders by the security service… This has resulted in the redistribution of the market in favor of one player. He is Viktor Medvedchuk and his company… Proton Energy," he said at the briefing.

He said that Proton Energy Group S.A. (Switzerland) imports around 40% of LPG to Ukraine. Leshchenko said that the company managed to reach the market share in two stages.

"First the market was cleaned by the SBU hands at the end of last year and early this year. The second stage is the creation of the exclusive conditions for Proton Energy when Rosneft issued the rights to import LPG to Ukraine only to this company," he said.

Leshchenko recalled that over corrupted collusion most traders left the LPG market and in the past week the price of LPG grew from UAH 11 to UAH 17.

He also said that the decrease in the prices of LPG would not reach the pre-crisis level.

Public activists and representatives of democratic parties demand from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to dismiss First Deputy SBU Chief Pavlo Demchyna, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv and Head of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine Yuriy Terentiev for pressing on business and artificial monopolization of the LPG market.