A large military column of troop trucks, armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles arrived in Russian-occupied Luhansk in the evening of Nov. 21 and started patrolling the streets of the city. Earlier in the day, heavily armed, wearing masks and uniforms with no identifying markings, cordened off the government quarter of the city and took up positions outside government buildings.
The presence of the armed men is likely due to a conflict between the head of Russian-led forces in Luhansk Igor Plotnytskyi and the self-styled “interior minister,” Igor Kornet. The armed men appeared after Plotnytskyi fired Kornet.
Speaking in a video released on Nov. 22, Kornet said soldiers from Russian-occupied Donetsk as well as from the so-called “Luhansk Ministry of Internal Affairs,” are supporting him.
Ukraine’s Border Service has increased its patrols of the front line with the occupied territories as a response to the events in Russian-occupied Luhansk.
