Photo: Ukrain.travel
For the past five months, Lviv veterans of the Donbas war, in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian-backed separatists, have been studying the Russian Consulate General in Lviv. Amid global rumors of Russian preparation to invade Ukraine further, the veterans want to initiate searches in the office on the street Kostya Levitskoho, 95, where the consulate is located, and evict the Russian mission from there. One of the initiators of the case, veteran of the war on the East of Ukraine and City Council deputy Ihor Sholtys, reported it to Tvoe Misto («Your City»), Lviv Now’s parent publication.
Read also: Lviv needs $130,000 USD to arrange the territorial defence in case of Russian invasion
«In recent years, we have been working on important Russian markers in Lviv,» Ihor Sholtys said. So they began to wonder on what grounds the Russian consulate operates in the city and whether it is a center of pro-Russian civic groups. It was only necessary to delve into the documentation to understand that many legislative and rule-making issues were violated during the formation of the consulate, its location in Lviv, and the unauthorized construction of the building on its current territory.»
Ihor Sholtys says that the process has already begun, and they want to announce their activities to bring the case to an end.
«We checked the inventory numbers, names and protocols, to expose the intricate «vatna» scheme [from a sleng word «vatnik», marking the Russian patriots who support the present government of the Federation]. Now we have the necessary documentation and know where to go.»
The veteran says they have already submitted inquiries to the relevant structures. No details have been released yet.
«Everyone in Lviv – both the business sector and the executive branch – must move so that we can stop the work of this consulate as one that poses a direct threat not only to national sovereignty, but also, in terms of security, to the city of Lviv. As of today, this process will be launched openly,» – the warrior adds.
We will add that Ukrainian and American intelligence recently reported that Russia has concentrated more than 100 thousand of its troops near the Ukrainian border, and the foreign experts predict the potential invasion in Ukraine in the beginning of 2022.
In its range, Russian propaganda calls these news fake and tries to blame Ukrainian defense preparations as a plan to attack Russia and the Ukrainian territories on Donbas that it occupied. As for now, the USA and Western countries are developing the plan to help Ukraine in case of invasion, in particular, cutting Russia off the SWIFT, an international network of financial transactions.
Earlier, Lviv Now interviewed Ostap Kryvdyk, an activist, political scientist, and associate researcher at the Ukrainian Catholic University Analytical Center to find out if Ukraine is ready for potential provocations, and whether the crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border is part of a Russia’s plan to invade Ukraine. You can read the story here.
Yuliia Osym
Translated by Vitalii Holich
You can read a Ukrainian language version of this story here.
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