Leaders of the Jewish community of Odessa, Ukraine, denied reports about the existence of evacuation plans for the city’s Jews.

“In connection with reports on the planned evacuation of the Jewish community of Odessa: No such plans exist,” Berl Kapulkin, a spokesperson for the local Chabad community, said in a statement that was published Tuesday on the website chabad.odessa.ua.

Titled “rebuttal,” the statement concerned a report published Sunday in an Israeli daily newspaper, which said that several community leaders told the paper that “Odessa’s Jews are prepared to evacuate should the violence” in the Ukrainian city get significantly worse.

The reports followed skirmishes last week between pro-Russian protesters and Ukrainian nationalists which resulted in multiple casualties. http://forward.com/articles/197745/odessa-jews-deny-plans-for-evacuation-amid-turmoil/