Update from our News Desk to our story about Ukraine marking the Day of Dignity and Freedom:
A day before the ceremonies, a senior prosecutor said that murder investigations launched in an effort to hold people responsible for the deaths of protesters are on hold because the cases have been transferred to a investigative body that does not yet exist.
Serhiy Horbatyuk, chief of the directorate for in absentia investigations at the Prosecutor-General's Office, said that cases involving corruption accusations against senior officials in Yanukovych's government were also effectively halted.
He said that by law, the murder probes were to be transferred from the Prosecutor-General’s Office to the State Investigation Bureau, but that the bureau has not yet been created.
However, Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko said on November 20 that his office would continue to investigate the Euromaidan killings and that the National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU) would continue handling cases against Yanukovych and his allies.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
Masked, armed troops take to streets of separatist-held Luhansk:
By RFE/RL
Armed men in unmarked uniforms have taken up positions in the center of Luhansk in what appears to be part of a power struggle among the Russia-backed separatists who control the city in eastern Ukraine.
Local television showed masked, rifle-toting men in camouflage, and the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta said they were blocking administrative buildings in the provincial capital.
Hours later, Luhansk separatist leader Igor Plotnitsky suggested that allies of the police chief he dismissed a day earlier were whipping up tensions and had put uniformed men into the streets.
"I can say with confidence that the attempts by certain people to stay in power by destabilizing the situation...are futile, and in the very near future will be neutralized," Plotnitsky said in a statement.
Parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions are held by Russia-backed separatists whose war against Kyiv's forces has killed more than 10,000 people since April 2014, when it erupted after Moscow fomented unrest following the ouster of Russia-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
In a statement posted on the Internet before Plotnitsky's statement, police chief Igor Kornet dismissed what he called "rumors about my dismissal" and said that the situation in what the separatists call the Luhansk People's Republic was "under the full control of forces of the law enforcement structures."
In the statement, Kornet claimed that police had "thwarted the activity of a Ukrainian sabotage-and-espionage group" that he said tried to enter the separatist-held territory overnight to carry out "sabotage and terrorist acts." He said that several people were detained and that police forces were "looking for other members of the group and their accomplices."
Kornet said that a probe had been opened on the director of the Luhansk television and radio company, Anastasia Shurkayeva, on suspicion of cooperation with Ukrainian intelligence.
He also said that investigations had been opened into the chief of Plotnitsky's administration, Irina Teitsman, and the chief of the police unit responsible for security of members of the separatists' de facto government, Yevgeny Seliverstov, on suspicion of involvement in an alleged attempt to seize power in September 2016.
Kornet said that Plotnitsky gave the order to launch the investigations, but there was no immediate word from Plotnitsky himself on that claim. (w/Novaya Gazeta, Meduza, Reuters)
From Christopher Miller:
Plotnitsky said in a statement that the armed men on the streets are there on Kornet's orders. He said: "This situation is a continuation of yesterday's personnel changes, including the lawful removal of the minister of the interior from his post. The events of today have proved once again that the right decision was made."
Plotnitsky said Kornet's earlier statement today "has no basis and validity" and that there were "no grounds" for arresting Shurkayeva and others who Kornet accused of working with Ukrainian authorities.
Plotnitsky ended by saying, "I can say with confidence that attempts by certain individuals to remain in power at the cost of destabilizing the situation inside the state are in vain, and will soon be completely neutralized."
My thoughts: Plotnitsky is a proxy for Surkov and the Kremlin, while Kornet is believed to be a proxy for the FSB. The power struggle is not only between Plotnitsky and Kornet, but the bodies controlling them. Each man has very limited individual power.