A car bomb killed at least one person in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine on Friday night, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials.
The explosion took place in Mykhailivka, a city in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine. The targeted vehicle was carrying “four Kremlin supporters,” Ivan Fedorov, the Ukrainian mayor-in-exile of the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian occupation official in the Zaporizhzhia region, confirmed the attack in a Telegram post, saying the bomb killed a “local businessman” named Sergei Didovoduk and injured two others.
The attack comes as Ukrainian troops prepare for a long-awaited counter-offensive analysts say will take place in southern Ukraine. Analysts and Western officials say Kiev’s troops are likely to try to cut off land routes connecting Russia to Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.
“We are ready,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal published Saturday.
Much depends on the forthcoming counter-offensive, especially after Russia’s recent capture of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. In the meantime, partisan attacks like Friday night’s have become a staple in occupied territories as Ukrainian insurgents target the Russian army and so-called Russian collaborators.
Mr Rogov portrayed Mr Didovoduk as a member of the local civil society who “regularly gave neighbors in need free food in his café”. According to Mr Rogov and unverified footage of the aftermath of the attack on social media, Mr Didovoduk died in a Soviet-made Niva car, a modest SUV.
Ukrainian officials suggested that the café of Mr. Didovoduk, the Hetman, was frequented by Russian soldiers and occupation officials.
The cafe is named after the common title of the head of the Cossack state that existed in Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries and played an important role in the creation of modern Ukraine.
Mr Didovoduk was registered to run for Russia’s ruling party in the upcoming local elections, Mr Rogov said. The Kremlin has made plans to hold local elections in September in four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia last year, a bid to legitimize the moves despite the region’s constantly shifting borders under Russian control.
Ukraine has denounced the elections in the annexed regions – Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Luhansk and Donetsk – as a sham.
Mr Didovoduk’s assassination also raises questions about the legality of partisan attacks under the internationally recognized laws of war, including whether partisans are considered combatants.
Ukrainian partisans say they are civilians and the legal basis for their activities is regulated by Ukrainian law, not the laws of war that prohibit a soldier from attacking a civilian official. But under international law, civilians become combatants when they begin to take part in hostilities.
Here’s what else is happening in Ukraine:
Air raid shelters: A nationwide inspection of bomb shelters across Ukraine found that 893 of the more than 4,800 bomb shelters checked so far were “unfit for use,” the interior minister wrote on Saturday. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered inspections following allegations and questions about the deaths of three people detained outside their detention center in Kiev on Thursday.