Ukraine arrests two top officials at cabinet meeting

March 25, 2015 (BBC News Europe) Two senior Ukrainian officials have been arrested during a cabinet meeting as part of an anti-corruption crackdown, hours after a powerful regional governor was sacked. The head of Ukraine's state emergencies service, Serhiy Bochkovsky, and his deputy Vasyl Stoyetsky were handcuffed by police at the televised meeting. They are suspected of involvement in high-level corruption. Earlier, Ukraine's president sacked a billionaire governor, Ihor Kolomoisky.

Ukrainian TV showed a policeman putting handcuffs on Serhiy Bochkovsky

Mr Kolomoisky had been running the key industrial region of Dnipropetrovsk and had financed armed volunteers to fight pro-Russian separatists in the east. He had been vying with President Petro Poroshenko for control of the Ukrnafta energy company. The two arrests shown on TV on Wednesday were connected to illegal kickbacks involving procurement contracts, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told the cabinet meeting. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, quoted by Reuters news agency, said that " when the country is at war and when we are counting every penny - they steal from people and the state. This will happen to everyone who breaks the law and sneers at the Ukrainian state."

The full article and a video of the arrest are available at:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32051743