KIEV, February 24 (RAPSI) – Ukrainian Security Service has no information on the current whereabouts of president Viktor Yanukovich, and does not confirm reports of his detainment in Crimea, Ukrinform agency reports on Monday.

The service also denied the rumors that Yanukovish is planning a sea bound escape from Balaklava in Sevastopol. The service’s representative said that possibility of Yanukovich still being in the country remains high. Previous reports of Yanukovich’s possible detainment in Crimea circulated through social media over the weekend.

The mass protests  initially got underway in Ukraine in November, but exploded this week with renewed vigor as thousands of people marched on the parliament building, where a standoff was taking place over proposed constitutional reforms that the opposition said could provide a way out of the political crisis that is paralyzing the country. The violence that ensued resulted in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries.

A tentative deal mediated by the EU and Russia between Yanukovych and the protestors was reached last Friday, but fell apart by the following day, when parliament voted to rule the president incapable of fulfilling his constitutional duties.

Yanukovych, who fled the capital, called the move a coup and compared it to the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany in the 1930s. Fighting between protestors and police last week claimed around 100 lives.