Cigarettes’ smuggling shooting with political taste

UKRAINE - In Brief 13 Jul 2015 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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3 people shot dead and 13 injured in shooting between police and representatives of ultra-right political move “Right Sector” on July 11, in Mukachevo, small town at the Western Ukraine, near 40 km from Hungarian border. This event effectively blew up media and, as a consequence, political life of the last few days. “Right Sector”, political move uniting large part of volunteering squads at the eastern front, claimed that they had been blocking smuggling routes of cigarettes and were attacked by local criminal group led by Mykhail Lanio (currently MP at the parliament) with support of local police. Local police is blaming “Right Sector” in guns’ use outside of military zone. For the moment the conflict is not resolved, president Petro Poroshenko runs negotiations with Dmytro Yarosh, leader of “Right Sector”. More and more interesting details of the story are revealed. “Right Sector” supporters claim their readiness to start protests demanding arrest of Mykhail Lanio and corrupt head of policy of the region. In fact in this story we have more questions than answers. However, what looks undisputable is that the shooting was just for control over smuggling flows. There is no surprise to know that local police is corrupt and involved in cigarettes’ smuggling as well as MP Mykhail Lanio, who is well-known criminal. The news was to know that “Right Sector” in full ammunition is trying to do something with smuggling 1500 km from the eastern front. We do not believe in large-scale political consequences of the shooting (like new revolution) since smuggling story smells very bad. However, we think there will be political consequences for “Right Sector” whose positive image, obt...