The commander of the National Guard of Ukraine, Mykola Balan, resigned amid a shooting in a security unit in the Dnieper, arranged on Thursday by a National Guard conscript. Balan stated this at a briefing, RBC-Ukraine reports. =»SingleImage_caption__2bWvj»>
Nikolay Balan. Photo: mvs.gov.ua
“Given that the commander or commander is responsible for any actions, this morning I expressed my desire and wrote a report to the Minister of Internal Affairs and a petition to the President of Ukraine” , — said the commander.
Before writing the report, Balan removed the command of the regiment in which the conscript who opened fire served. So he hopes to avoid the influence of commanders on the course of the investigation. Earlier, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky demanded «personnel conclusions» from the situation.
Balan headed the National Guard under President Petro Poroshenko, in 2015.
In the early morning of January 27, a soldier of the National Guard of Ukraine, 20 -year-old Artemy Ryabchuk shot five people with a Kalashnikov assault rifle on the territory of the Yuzhmash plant, where his group was guarding. Another five people were injured, two of them in serious condition. Later, another serviceman died while providing medical assistance, RIA Novosti reports.
Ryabchuk fled the scene, and the Sirena police operation was introduced in the city. Later, the conscript surrendered to law enforcement officers.
The State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine launched an investigation into the negligence of the leadership of the National Guard (part 3 of article 425 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — the negligent attitude of a military official to the service, which entailed grave consequences). Among the possible reasons for the shooting, the investigators named hazing and harassment.