Sergiy Tigipko, a Ukrainian presidential candidate, said he has managed to get into the building of the Ukrainian Security Service's department in the Luhansk region and talk to the people who have occupied it.

"All information that there are some Russians there is false," Tigipko told a briefing in the Ukrainian parliament on Wednesday.

Tigipko said the people he talked to showed him Ukrainian passports and he saw that there are no Russian citizens in the building. "There are no hostages there, either," he said.

Tigipko said the people who are in the building of the Ukrainian Security Service's department are preparing to make demands.

"The authorities do not hear the demands made in the southeast. People are making some demands, but no one hears them and no one wants to react. Moreover, they are called all sorts of things, including separatists, but they are really ordinary, normal people who want some changes in the country and whom no one heeds now," he said.

The protesters have turned to the authorities many times and spoken about federalization, which should involve maintaining the unity of Ukraine and greater powers of the regions.

Tigipko said he will meet with Ukraine's acting president Oleksandr Turchynov in the near future to discuss the matter, adding that he also intends to discuss the creation of a parliamentary commission to help resolve people's problems in cooperation with the authorities.