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Dear Deputies have moved 700 kilometers to the east accompanied by representatives of the Committee on Preventing and Combating Corruption. Head of Luhansk Oblast Military and Civillian Administration Heorhii Tuka, has invited as the first off-site meeting in a new administrative center in Sievierodonetsk, initiated by him and MP Svitlana Zalishchuk (Petro Poroshenko Bloc):
“As long as I was highly focused on combating corruption, I asked to organize an off-site meeting on the first week after my appointment. I chose the Committee on Preventing and Combating Corruption because I hoped to make some changes after the meeting. Yet in Kyiv, I asked the people not to just attend the conference, but to prepare the certain ways of solution which I could put into practice.”
The hotel in Sievierodonetsk bearing a symbolic name 'Myr' ('Peace') was guarded by more than two hundred law-enforcement officers including Special Forces, representatives of volunteer batallions, SBU, and Fiscal Service. However, only 9 of 22 members of the Committee have managed to come to Sievierodonetsk. Thus, the meeting wasn't opened due to the absence of quorum. The Committee conducted hearings instead, participated by Chief Military Prosecutor of Ukraine Anatolii Matios, SBU Head in Luhansk oblast Oleh Kozlovskyi, and Head of the Main Investigation Department of MIA of Ukraine in Luhansk oblast Anatolii Naumenko.
Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine and Chief Military Prosecutor of Ukraine Anatolii Matios has stated: “8 persons were sentenced to prison and expropriation over the year (concerning smuggling – Ed.) in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.”
Head of the Main Investigation Department of MIA of Ukraine in Luhansk oblast Anatolii Naumenko compained on MPs: “The current Criminal Procedure Code doesn't empower us enough to properly detain terrorists and separatists. Thus, we have submitted amendments to the Committee: this draft law is being on consideration of the Committee for 7 months already, but it hasn't been put to the vote yet.”
Director of the Military Men and the City Project Valentyna Ahafonova has stated: “As representatives of non-governmental organizations from Sievierodonetsk, we expected that General Naumenko would be ousted from office. Everyone were expected that to happen.”
Serhii Leshchenko (Petro Poroshenko Bloc) said in the lobby: “This committee (Committee on Preventing and Combating Corruption), doesn't have professional law-enforcement officers and jurists in contrast to the previous one. This committee is made to promote public corruption fighters and 'Facebook treason', and I am one of them.”