From 300 to 400 people are taking part in a pro-Russian rally in Luhansk on Wednesday. Over 1,000 people were in the building of the Ukrainian Security Service's department in the Luhansk region at night. The number of the people decreased in the early hours of Wednesday, but people started coming again at dawn. The protesters waited for the police to storm the building all night. They are now reinforcing the barricades and are putting up additional defense lines. The protesters are saying they are having negotiations with the authorities, but are not giving up the demands they made earlier. In the meantime, the police said the several dozen people who left the building earlier were not hostages. Sergiy Tigipko, a presidential candidate, who has been expelled from the Party of Regions, came to meet with the protesters at night, but they refused to talk to him. Tigipko went inside the building, where the pro-Russian activists talked to him about their demands. Tigipko later said in an interview with local Internet television that the demands are "quite reasonable." He also said he had not seen any hostages inside the occupied building. An Interfax correspondent reported on Wednesday morning that no police except for the traffic police were to be seen in central Luhansk. The streets leading to the building are blocked, with the exception of Radianska Street, on which the building is located. On April 6, pro-Russian protesters stormed the building of the Ukrainian Security Service's department in the Luhansk region. The city prosecutors opened a criminal case. The police later reported that the protesters inside the building had weapons. The Ukrainian Security Service has demanded the release of the hostages it says are being held in the building, the clearing of the building of mines, and the surrender of weapons. "The anti-terrorist group of the Ukrainian Security Service, which is working on freeing the administrative building of the Ukrainian Security Service occupied by members of a radical organization, has determined that the criminals have put mines in the building," the Ukrainian Security Service press center reported on April 8. "Wielding weapons and explosives, the separatists are forcibly holding some sixty citizens, not letting the people leave the building and return home. That is, they are using methods used by terrorists," the press center reported. The Ukrainian Security Service press center reported in the early hours of April 9 that 56 people without weapons had left the building.