Crimea says provocations on the rise ahead of referendum
March 12, 2014
With Crimea’s region breakaway referendum nearing, local authorities report an upsurge in provocations by pro-Maidan activists. In the Crimean capital of Simferopol an undisclosed number of people have been detained for purposefully damaging civilians’ passports or taking away their documents, local police reported Tuesday. Under the guise of policemen, a group of perpetrators asked people in the streets of the city to show their passports, which is a normal practice in CIS states. They then either kept the documents or ripped them up. The same fraud has been also reported in the small town of Saky (Saki) in western Crimea.