Ukraine says it carried out a 'special operation to eliminate' Mikhail Filiponenko, working 'jointly with representatives of the resistance movement', while a purported Russian missile killed at least one after striking a civilian ship in Odessa.
Ukraine's spy agency has said it was behind the assassination of a Russia-backed politician and former militia leader who died in a car bomb attack in the nation's east.
Mr Filiponenko was a deputy in the Luhansk regional parliament and a former head of a Moscow-backed separatist militia set up in 2014 to fight against Kyiv.Moscow-backed proxies in the Luhansk and neighbouring Donetsk regions of Ukraine launched a civil war in 2014 after a pro-European revolution in Kyiv.
Several pro-Kremlin politicians and public figures have been targeted since Russia launched its assault on Ukraine in February 2022. "The missile hit the superstructure of a civilian vessel under the flag of Liberia, at the moment of its entry into the port," Ukraine's southern military command said on Telegram messenger.
The vessel was supposed to transport iron ore to China, Ukraine Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said.