KYIV. March 20 (Interfax) - Ukraine's interior minister said on Wednesday that 3,000 Ukrainian National Guard troops who have been posted in Crimea remained loyal to their oath and continued to serve there.
"As regards those in Crimea who report to our ministry, they are primarily the National Guards - about 3,000 people. These units of the National Guard are loyal to their oath to Ukraine and are doing full-scale service. None of them has been taken prisoner, none have gone over to the new separatist authorities," Arsen Avakov told a news conference in Kyiv.
As for regular police, "the situation is more complicated," he said. "It's such a motley map - everyone is behaving in quite a variety of ways."
On the possibility of the withdrawal of the National Guard units and Ukrainian police from Crimea, Avakov said: "We have thought over decisions of this kind - we have understanding at command levels on how we will act."
"As soon as the National Security and Defense Council makes a political decision, the plan will start to be put into practice. But the likelihood of that is the same as the likelihood of other plans," Avakov said.