KYIV. Nov 30 (Interfax-Ukraine) - The Ukrainian Security Service's investigations department on Monday launched a criminal case on charges of encroachment on the country's territorial integrity and inviolability, the Security Service's press secretary Marina Ostapenko told Interfax.
"Some of the Ukrainian media outlets have quoted individual officials as saying that the southeastern regions should secede from Ukraine," the Security Service's press service told Interfax.
"Calls are being made to form an autonomous entity encompassing the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and other regions, and subsequently join it to the Russian Federation," it said.
"These statements have the characteristics of a crime stipulated in Part 2 of Article 110 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code (encroachment on Ukraine's territorial integrity and inviolability) and are viewed as public calls, agreed upon in advance by a group of officials and other persons, for actions aimed at changing the borders of Ukraine's internal territories and state borders in violation of the procedure set forth in the constitution," the press center said.