The newly appointed commander of the Territorial Defense Forces in 2013 was the head of the department of the Southern Territorial Command of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The new commander of the TRO, Igor Plakhuta, commanded internal troops during the crackdown on protesters on Independence Square in 2013. This was reported by Ukrayinska Pravda on Sunday, February 11.
The media writes that on the night of December 10, 2013, law enforcement officers liberated the government quarter from the Euromaidan barricades. Subsequently, Plakhuta, the then head of the Southern Territorial Command of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, stated that about 400 soldiers of the internal troops and the Berkut special forces were sent to clear the streets. According to him, “the men in black who removed the barricades were utility workers.”
On January 21, 2014, the media wrote that an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to negotiate with the demonstrators and it turned out to be the current commander of the territorial defense forces, newly appointed by the president.
Igor Plakhuta - Major General. He was the commander of the 169th training center of the Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the head of the department of the Southern Territorial Command of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was also deputy commander of the operational-strategic command of the Khortytsya troops, commanded by the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander Syrsky.
