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Ruling party lawmaker kidnapped in Ukraine

Xinhua, February 23, 2017 Adjust font size:

A Ukrainian lawmaker of the ruling party was kidnapped in the country's southern city of Odessa, authorities said Thursday.

Olexiy Goncharenko, also the deputy chief of the party that supports President Petro Poroshenko in the parliament, was kidnapped by a group of unidentified people, the prosecutor's office in Odessa region said, without giving further details.

Yury Tandyt, the aid to the head of the Ukrainian Security Service, also confirmed Goncharenko's abduction, saying a special operation was going on to save him.

Olga Chervakova, another lawmaker from Poroshenko's parliamentary bloc,told local media that the official investigation showed that Goncharenko could have been kidnapped by independence-seeking insurgents.

The 36-year-old Goncharenko, who entered the Ukrainian parliament in October 2014, has been a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

He is known for his fierce rhetoric against the insurgents in eastern Ukraine, who have been fighting the government troops since April 2014. Endi