Interior minister invited to parliament to report on scuffle in Kyiv on May 18
Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Rybak has sent a letter to Ukrainian Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko with an invitation for him to speak in parliament on Tuesday, May 21.
"I will now send a letter to the interior minister with the questions that were put here," Rybak told reporters on Monday.
"As for the interior minister, I will prepare a letter. At present I don't know whether he is on a business trip. If he is in [Kyiv], we will invite him to give explanations and report on the situation with the rally in Kyiv," he said.
He also said that a draft resolution on the creation of a commission investigating the facts of a scuffle between the participants of rallies and the beating of journalists would be put to the vote on Tuesday.
Rybak said that a report by the leadership of the Prosecutor General's Office and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) could be heard in parliament after the work of the commission, if it does not make a conclusion about the need for such a report.
As reported, a conflict erupted between representatives of the opposition and a group of unidentified men on Velyka Zhytomyrska Street in Kyiv at about 1420 on May 18, which later turned into a brawl. The young men began throwing water bottles and stones.
Several people, including Channel 5 journalist Olha Snitsarchuk and Kommersant photographer Vladyslav Sodel, were injured in the incident.
According to the Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper, representatives of a sports club were involved in the scuffle. According to investigations by journalists, an athlete from Bila Tserkva (Kyiv region) was involved in the attack on journalists.