The Kyiv metropolitan police reported on July 26 about receiving two anonymous phone calls claiming that explosive devises had been installed along the route of two religious processions that are heading to Kyiv.
The police website said bomb squads, K-9 specialists and officers of the State Service for Emergency Situations were sent to the places of alleged mining to "carefully examine these places and surrounding areas.
The All-Ukrainian Procession of the Cross for Peace, Love and Prayer for Ukraine procession by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate started on July 3 from the Svyatohorsk Lavra in the east of Ukraine, and on July 9 – from the Pochayiv Lavra in the west. On July 26, on the eve of the celebration of the Baptism of Rus-Ukraine, both processions are scheduled to arrive in Kyiv. They plan to converge on Kyiv's Volodymyrska Hill, and pass along to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra to participate in solemn liturgy.
The Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Andriy Parubiy, earlier said that the procession to Kyiv was organized by the Kremlin to destabilize the situation in the country. Law enforcement officials have pledged to avoid clashes. The Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko has said that all pilgrims will have to pass through metal detectors.