UPDATE 1-Ukraine police detain people over 2016 journalist killing - minister

Ukrainian police have detained people in connection with the killing in 2016 of the investigative journalist Pavel Sheremet, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Thursday.

"This is the result of very complex and persistent work of real professionals and an important step towards fully solving the case!" he wrote on Facebook, adding that more details would be given at a press conference later. A Belarusian award-winning journalist known for his criticism of his home country's leadership, Sheremet was killed in a car bomb in central Kiev in July 2016 on his way to work.

Investigators have said they believed Sheremet's assassination to be related to his journalistic activities in Ukraine and other countries. The killing was a throwback to the days of violence against journalists that Ukraine, under a pro-Western leadership since the 2014 Maidan protests, hoped to have shed.

In 2002, Sheremet won a journalism prize from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for his reporting on human rights violations in Belarus, including the disappearances of opposition politicians and journalists. Western diplomats, the OSCE and rights activists have urged Ukraine to solve the case.