Zakarpattia Governor Hennadii Moskal has stated that a resident of Transnistria, an unrecognized strip of land that broke away from Moldova, is the man behind an arson attack on the Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association in the Ukrainian town of Uzhgorod.
"The identity of the organizer has been established – this is a resident of Transnistria, who immediately fled home once the crime was committed. According to our information, he is an officer of the Ministry of State Security of Transnistria," Moskal wrote on Facebook.
Read alsoPro-Putin right-wingers from EU behind arson attempt at Hungarians Union building in Zakarpattia – GovernorHe noted that, given the status of the breakaway, unrecognized territory, the perpetrator is unlikely to appear before a Ukrainian court.
"I regret to say that there is an ATO veteran among the detainees, residents of Cherkasy and Kropyvnytsky, who set on fire the office of the Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association on the night of February 27," Moskal added.
According to him, the detainees are not members of political parties or movements, but "went to this provocation for the sake of money".
"No one has any doubts that the second arson at the culture center was organized by the Russian FSB (as well as an earlier arson on the night of February 4, committed by citizens of Poland, members of the right-wing pro-Russian Falanga organization)," Moskal said.
Read alsoPoland's security forces bust group involved in arson attack on Hungarian culture center in ZakarpattiaHe also stressed that the Russian intelligence services had attempted to recruit local "activists" to do the job, but after they failed to find any, they attracted people from other regions of Ukraine.
Moskal has no doubts that the Russian intelligence "will continue setting up various provocations to try to saw discord between Ukrainians and Hungarians, and undermine the situation in Zakarpattia region on interethnic grounds." Using explicit language he is notorious for, Moskal stressed there is no way for a "Donbas scenario" to unfold in the region.
As UNIAN reported earlier, an attack with the use of a Molotov cocktail that was hurled at the building of the Transcarpathian Hungarians Union in the west Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod was reported on February 4.
The center was attacked again on February 27: it caught fire after an explosion of an improvised explosive device.
