KIEV, March 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ukraine’s police said that 25 officers were injured in clashes with ultra-nationalists who tried to attack a presidential motorcade ahead of elections at the end of this month.
Nineteen police officers were hospitalised in the city of Cherkasy, where supporters of the far-right National Corps party on Sunday tried to block President Petro Poroshenko’s motorcade and accused the government of corruption.
Three officers were also injured in clashes with the same group in Kiev near the presidential offices, with one hospitalised.
The incidents further exacerbate tensions ahead of the presidential elections on March 31 in a country plagued by graft scandals and an ongoing conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Police spokesman Yaroslav Trakalo said that investigations had been opened into the events in Kiev and Cherkasy.
On Sunday, the interior announced the arrest of two people suspected of “violence against security forces” and “hooliganism”.
Poroshenko was in Cherkasy Saturday to honour locally born national poet Taras Shevchenko and meet local residents. He has made no comment about the clashes.
Poroshenko ,who is running for a second term in office, is one of three leading candidates in the presidential polls, alongside television actor Volodymyr Zelensky and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. — NNN-AGENCIES
