A top Ukrainian Interior Ministry official said on May 19 that 32 pro-Russia protesters who retreated inside Odessa’s Trade Unions building after clashes with pro-Ukraine activists and later died when the building was torched on May 2 might have been poisoned with chloroform.

Vitaliy Sakal, Ukraine’s deputy interior minister and chief

investigator, told journalists in Kyiv on May 19

that chloroform, a chemical that restricts the ability to breath, was discovered

by his investigative team inside the Trade Unions building.