A car bomb in Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine’s eastern Lugansk region killed a Moscow-appointed government official on Monday, local authorities said.
The local branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said the deputy head of a state-run administrative agency was killed when “an unidentified device detonated in a car” on Monday afternoon.
Several Moscow-installed officials in eastern Ukraine have been killed in apparent attacks orchestrated by Kyiv or pro-Kyiv forces since Russia launched its military offensive in February 2022.
The Investigative Committee posted a photo of a light-colored SUV with its windows and doors blown out and wreckage strewn across the street in Starobilsk, a town in Lugansk.
“The circumstances of the incident and the people involved in the commission of the crime are being established,” it said, adding that an investigation into a “terrorist act” had been opened.
Municipal head Vladimir Chernev named the victim as Valery Chaika, an official in Lugansk.
Lugansk is one of the four eastern Ukrainian regions that Moscow claimed to annex in 2022.
A previous blast had ripped through a café early on Monday, in the southern Russian city of Voronezh. Footage published by the Zvezda news service showed shattered windows of the café on Lenin Street.
The Mash media group said the café was attacked in the early hours when no one was on the premises. RIA state news agency quoted police as saying they were investigating after reports of damages.
