Not one, but seven grenades were planned to be used at Ukraine's Rada on Aug 31 - Security Council secretary Turchynov
Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Oleksandr Turchynov said that during the protest action outside the Verkhovna Rada on August 31, its participants were planning to use not one but seven grenades, including six rounds of ammunition that should have hit the parliament's windows.
"Those who were preparing provocative acts outside the Rada on August 31, wanted them to be large-scale. So, it was planned to use not one but seven grenades. It was planned that the first grenade will explode under the smoking screen among the ranks of the National Guard, prompting National Guard servicemen to use weapons. By the way, according to the instructions, if combat weapons are used they should respond adequately. After this another six grenades should have been hurled into the parliament's windows," Turchynov said on the Left Bank with Sonya Koshkina program, the LB.ua edition said on its website on Tuesday.
He said that it was planned that the National Guard would use weapons and that "there will be numerous casualties among the demonstrators so that it will be practically impossible to find who was the first to have shot."
Asked to name the masterminds of this plan, he said: "The investigators will establish the masterminds. There will be named defendants."
Meanwhile, Turchynov assumed that several lawmakers might be stripped of immunity, if the investigators find that they were involved in the riots: "If it is proved that they were participating in these actions indirectly and as organizers, then yes, we will do it."
Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the first grenade hurled outside the Verkhovna Rada building on August 31 should have hit National Guard combatants and they were planning to throw a second grenade into a window of the parliament.
The head of state said that, according to the terrorist plot, it was planned to cover the perpetrators with smoke "to protect them from video monitoring in order not to identify the criminals who were planning to kill people and stage this provocation."
It was reported that on August 31 the Verkhovna Rada approved by 265 votes the first reading of the presidential bill on the introduction of amendments to the country's fundamental law regarding power decentralization.
After this clashes broke out near the parliament building between the protesters against the voting for this bill and law enforcers. As a result of clashes and the thrown grenade three National Guard servicemen died as of Tuesday, several servicemen were gravely wounded. More than 140 law enforcers and civilians, including media representatives were injured.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov accused the Svoboda All-Ukraine Union and its leader Tiahnybok of the clashes at the parliament building: "I directly accuse Oleh Tiahnybok and his party Svoboda. I believe that this is a crime, but not a political stand."
For his part, Tiahnybok said: "The fact that Avakov 'has established the culprits' so urgently points to one thing that a provocation was plotted exactly by him."
As part of the investigation into the criminal case, the Main Investigative Directorate of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry has summoned for interrogation around 30 people, including the leaders and members of the Svoboda All-Ukraine Union.
Therefore, information regarding the August 31 events has been filed with the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations as qualified under the Ukrainian Criminal Code Article 348 (an attempt on the life of a law enforcement official, a member of a social group for protecting public order or the state border, or a military serviceperson), Article 345 Part 3 (a threat or violence against a law enforcement official), Article 293 (violation of the public order by a group), Article 294 Part 2 (mass unrest) and Article 258 Part 3 (an act of terrorism), the Prosecutor General's Office said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin said that the August 31 events outside the Verkhovna Rada had the signs of creating a criminal organization (Article 255 of the Ukrainian Penal Code).