The commander of the A2985 military unit of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry is accused of abuse of office, inactivity of military power and theft of military property, RIA Novosti learnt from the press service of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office. He has been arrested on court decision.
Another serviceman of the same unit has been arrested. He set fire to an empty powder bag on the artillery projectile site. The other four charged are in custody by the unit's commanders. The Prosecutor General's Office did not specify their charges.
Last Wednesday it said that the fire at the ammunition base 275 near the military unit broke out at the fault of the servicemen grossly neglecting the fire safety rules and smoking on the ammunition site.
One of them set fire to an empty bag of powder. Noticing the approaching commanders, he hastily smothered the fire and pushed the bag under the ammunition shelves. All that happened on a powder-strewn site. Fire began some time later.
The fire on the ammunition base, containing over 90,000 tonnes of artillery rounds, broke out at 12:50, local time, on May 6. Exploded rounds flew 10 to 40 kilometres away. A guard of the base has got fragmentation wounds, four civilians died of heart attacks.
The damage done to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry is estimated at 2,252 billion hrivnas (424.9 million dollars), the population loses account to 1,496 million hrivnas (282,200 dollars).
The emergency situations and defence ministries are using four fire-fighting tanks to extinguish seats of smoke and fire.
