Maksym Shapoval, a colonel in the chief intelligence directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, was blown up in a car-bomb explosion at 8:14 a.m. on June 27 in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies put the blame on Russia, chief military prosecutor Anatoly Matios said during a press briefing at the Presidential Administration building in Kyiv.
Ukrainian military intelligence colonel killed in car blast in Kyiv (VIDEO)
An explosion in a car killed Shapoval on Solomyanska Street in Kyiv. It also injured a female passerby.
Following the incident, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko chaired an emergency meeting with all of Ukraine’s security services and law enforcement agencies, Matios said.
“The terror attack was conducted by top-ranked specialists,” the prosecutor said. “The yield of an explosive device…was so powerful that the victim’s body parts were found on the first floor level over 50 meters away from the explosion scene.”
Representatives of all of Ukraine’s security services and law enforcement agencies are investigating.
Matios showed a photograph of Shapoval in uniform. The slain officer had two children. Matios said the officer commanded a special forces unit that initially defended the now-ruined Donetsk Airport in the earliest days of the battle with Russian forces in 2014.
“He was the first Ukrainian ‘cyborg,’,” Matios said, using a widespread nickname given to defenders of Donetsk Airport. “Only after him other special forces units, the 3rd and the 8th regiments, entered the combat.”
The car bomb explosion took place on a busy street during rush hour with video camera surveillance. As many as 10 bomb attacks were registered in Ukraine in 2017.
