A senior military intelligence officer was killed by a car bomb early on June 27 in Kyiv, and one passerby was wounded by shrapnel from the blast. Police say they are investigating the case as a terrorist attack.
The killed officer was a military intelligence colonel, Maksym Shapoval, who was head of special forces at the Chief Military Intelligence Office.
The colonel was driving a Mercedes car in the western part of Kyiv on the morning of June 27. As the car was passing the intersection of Solomianska and Mechanizatoriv Streets at 8:15 a.m., it blew up.
A Youtube video of the massive explosion on Mekhanizatoriv Street in Solomiansky district of Kyiv.
The shrapnel from the bomb wounded a 27-year-old woman, who was taken to a hospital, according to Kyiv police spokeswoman Oksana Blyshchyk.
There is no threat to the woman’s life, Blyshchyk said.
Blyshchyk refused to comment on whether there were any passengers in the blown-up car. The police and the military representatives are working now at the scene.
The apparent car-bombing is the latest in a series of attacks against military and law enforcement officials that have occurred in recent months, and the second car bombing in Kyiv in a week.
On March 31, Oleksandr Kharaberiush, a colonel of the State Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was killed in a car blast in Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast. Kharaberiush was a deputy head of SBU counter-intelligence in Donetsk Oblast.
On June 23, Ukrainian war veteran Sergiy Oliynyk was stabbed to death in an argument with a stranger near the Golden Gates monument in the center of Kyiv.
There have been other car bombings recently in Kyiv as well.
On June 23, a businessman was injured when the SUV he was driving exploded on the intersection of Turhenivska and Poltavska Streets in Kyiv’s downtown. The police later said that an explosive device had been attached to the car under the driver’s seat.
And back in July 2016, a similar car blast killed Pavel Sheremet, a prominent journalist of Belarusian origin, in the center of Kyiv. No one has been arrested or charged in connection with the murder.
