Kyiv's Pechersky District Court will start hearing a petition for a former Regions' Party faction leader, Oleksandr Yefremov, to be remanded in custody on Monday, August 1, People's Front faction deputy leader Andriy Teteruk wrote on Facebook.

Yefremov was detained on suspicion of encroaching on Ukraine's territorial integrity at Boryspil Airport in Kyiv on July 30 after he boarded an Austrian Airlines plane bound for Vienna.

Yefremov was arrested after the authorities received an intelligence report that he could escape, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said at a briefing later on Saturday. The Prosecutor General's Office will petition for his two-month detention, Lutsenko said, adding that given his charges the man should not be released on bail or placed under house arrest.

Yefremov is suspected of a number of criminal offences, including taking possession of a property, premeditated attempts to change the borders of Ukrainian territory in breach of the Constitution, and organizing and assisting the efforts to create the self-proclaimed Luhansk people's republic (Articles 191, 110 and 258 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code).