A high-ranking Ukrainian military intelligence official has been killed by a car bomb in Kiev in what authorities are calling an act of terrorism.
An explosive device destroyed the Mercedes being driven by Col Maksim Shapoval at 8.15am local time, police said.
The car’s bonnet was blown open and its roof and driver side door almost completely destroyed, video footage from the scene showed.
“The picture of the crime looks like it was a planned act of terrorism,” interior ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko told local media. The military prosecutor said his office would lead an investigation.
Police said a female passerby with shrapnel wounds to her legs received medical treatment after the explosion, as did an elderly man who suffered shrapnel wounds to his neck.
According to the defence ministry, Shapoval was a colonel in military intelligence. The Ukrainian Pravda newspaper quoted law enforcement sources saying he had headed a special forces unit.
Yury Butusov, editor of the Censor.net news website, said in a Facebook post that Shapoval’s unit had fought in eastern Ukraine, where a conflict with Russia-backed separatists that broke out in 2014 has killed more than 10,000 people. He claimed Russian intelligence could have killed Shapoval.
Source: The Guardian