A bomb attack in Kyiv on the night of Oct. 25 killed two people and injured three others. The injured included Ukrainian lawmaker Ihor Mosiychuk of the Radical Party and political analyst Vitaliy Bala.
The explosion took place at around 10 p.m. as Mosiychuk and several other people were leaving the studio of the television station Espresso TV in Kyiv’s Solomyanskiy district.
Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) has categorized the incident as a terrorist attack. Interior Ministry advisor Zoryan Shkiryak said that the bomb appeared to have been planted on a motorbike parked near the exit of the TV station. He said the incident appeared to be a targeted assassination attempt.
Mosiychuk’s bodyguard Ruslan Kushniruk and a former Interior Ministry employee Mykhailo Mormyl, 36, who was passing by, were killed by the blast.
Mosiychuk’s press service said that the lawmaker was the target of the blast. He was hospitalized but didn’t suffer life-threatening injuries.
A security camera has captured the moment of an explosion in Kyiv late on Oct. 25. As a result of an explosion two people were killed, three injured. The injured included Ukrainian lawmaker Ihor Mosiychuk of the Radical Party and political analyst Vitaliy Bala.
Political analyst Bala was hospitalized and required surgery. A female passerby is also in hospital in a critical condition after suffering head injuries.
The Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko claimed that the assassination attempt was linked to Mosiychuk’s “political views and professional activity.” Mosiychuk was one of those who on Oct. 24 came to support Mykola Kokhanivsky, the leader of the volunteer battalion of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, who was arrested on charges of assault.
The explosion is the latest in a series of deadly blasts and assassinations targeting politicians, officials, and journalists in the capital. None of the cases have been solved.
The series began in July 2016 when a car bomb killed journalist Pavlo Sheremet, an independent reporter for news website Ukrayinska Pravda whose work had been critical of both Russia and Ukraine.
One of the most high-profile of the recent murders was that of former Russian lawmaker turned Kremlin critic Denis Voronenkov, who was gunned down in broad daylight in Kyiv in March. After that, Chechen Adam Osmayev, a member of a volunteer battalion fighting in Ukraine’s Donbas, was severely wounded after a failed assassination attempt in Kyiv on June 1.
Colonel Maksym Shapoval, an intelligence officer at Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, was blown up in his car on June 27 in Kyiv. Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies blamed Russia for the murder.
In a blast in central Kyiv on Sept. 8, Ali Timayev, also known as Timur Mahauri, an ex-militant with Georgian and Chechen connections, was killed by a car bomb.
