KYIV. April 17 (Interfax) - Unknown people have raided a garrison of the Ukrainian Internal Troops' Mariupol battalion following servicemen's refusal to switch to their side, Ukraine's National Guard reported on its websites.
"Citizens started to loosen the entrance gates, as well as tried to force open the door to the checkpoint and set fire to the building using Molotov cocktails. Servicemen are defending it, extinguishing the blaze and firing warning shots into the air. But these people refuse to calm down, and shots fired into the air can already been heard inside the crowd," it said.
These persons approached the military unit at around 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday and told its command that "either they agree to take the "people's" side or a storm of the unit will be launched in 15 minutes," the National Guard said.
Only authorized personnel have access to the military unit, and officers of law enforcement agencies are allowed to use "measures of physical resistance, special-purpose means and even weapons in extreme cases" in the event of any unauthorized entry, it said.
However, the crowd started to raid the garrison in defiance of these warnings.
According to Ukrainian media reports, the people who gathered outside the military unit's garrison demanded that servicemen "share weapons with them", after which they started to throw Molotov cocktails, setting fire to a police van.