Armed men block Luhansk center as internal power struggle intensifies (VIDEO)

The little green men are back.

Soldiers in unmarked uniforms took over the center of Russian-occupied Luhansk on Nov. 21, blocking access to administrative buildings without saying who they were, or who had sent them.

While locals told local TV they were scared by the developments, the leaders of the Russian-installed authorities traded accusations of “treason.”

Igor Plotnistsky, the leader of the Russian-backed forces that have taken control of part of Ukraine’s Luhansk Oblast, said in a special video address those masked armed people were supporters of Igor Kornet, the leader of the occupation authorities’ police force until Plotnitsky dismissed him on Nov. 20.

Kornet, meanwhile, claimed in his own video statement that he remained in his job and that his police had overnight captured “a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group.” He said Plotnitsky’s supporters were among those who had organized the group.

Kornet claimed that the head of Plotnitsky’s administration, Irina Teitsman, and the head of the Russian occupying administration’s security service, Yevgeniy Seliverstov, had tried to imitate a coup d’etat against Plotnitsky in September 2016 to crack down on Plotnitsky’s critics.

As a result of that alleged coup in 2016, Plotnitsky’s supporters arrested Yevgeny Tsepkalov, a former prime minister in the Russian occupying authorities, who was later found dead in his prison cell, and imprisoned Vitaly Kiselev, a former army chief of Russia’s proxy forces in the occupied area. Kornet described Tsepkalov as his “military comrade.”

Kornet said he showed Plotnitsky proof on the night of Nov. 20 that a coup  had been imitated in 2016 and that Plotnitsky had agreed to arrest Teitsman, Selivestrova and the head of the Luhansk TV channel Anastasiya Shurkayeva.

Armed men in unmarked uniforms took up positions in the center of Russian-occupied Luhansk on Nov. 21, blocking access to administrative buildings without saying who they were, or who had sent them.

Plotnitsky, however, claimed he didn’t approve the arrest of those people. “Investigations are being carried out at the moment, but they concern other cases and other people,” he said. He added that his forces are trying to “neutralize” the attempts to “destabilize” the situation Luhansk.

Plotnitsky has been feuding with the Russian occupying authorities’ prosecutor general, Vitaly Podobry, the self-proclaimed interior minister, Igor Kornet, and the so-called state security minister, Leonid Pasechnik.

In October, the self-proclaimed prosecutor general, Zaur Ismailov, a Plotnitsky loyalist, was replaced by Podobry, a protégé of Kornet.

Plotnistky, the head of the Russian-backed Zarya battalion, is one of few Donbas warlords who has managed to live through power struggles in the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk Oblast in the more than three years since Russia fomented war in eastern Ukraine.

But his chances of staying in power look to be fading, as Russian propaganda TV channels are now broadcasting his rival Kornet’s statements from the local TV station, which is now occupied by Kornet’s men.

Earlier, Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta said there were unconfirmed reports that the armed men who appeared in Luhansk were sent there from Donetsk by Oleksandr Zakharchenko, the leader of the Russian-led forces that currently occupy part of Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, to support Kornet.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov contributed reporting to the story.