KIEV, June 8 – Acting state-run Orion Machine-Building Production Association Chairman Volodymyr Barabanov has asked the newly appointed head of Odessa Regional Administration Mikheil Saakashvili to intervene after the company was seized by armed persons in April 2015 without any reaction from the local authorities and law-enforcement agencies.

Barabanov said on June 5 that armed persons prevented him from entering the company premises, and have presented themselves as Self-Defense of Odessa, affiliated with previous chairman Mykola Kuschak who headed the board since 2000. Barabanov said that under Kuschak’s tenure, the profit-making company became loss-making and the most scandalous company in Ukraine.