Mikhail Filiponenko, a pro-Russian lawmaker and ex-militiaman in occupied jap Ukraine, walked over to a automobile outdoors his home on Wednesday morning … and was promptly blown to smithereens, Russian media reported.
Ukraine’s Army Intelligence instantly claimed duty for the assassination.
“Yeah, it was our operation,” Andriy Cherniak, consultant of Ukraine’s Army Intelligence Directorate, also called GUR, advised POLITICO in a telephone dialog concerning the automobile bomb assault.
Army intelligence labored along with native Ukrainian partisans to organize to assassinate Filiponenko, GUR mentioned in an announcement.
Filiponenko was born in Luhansk and studied in Kyiv. Nonetheless, in 2014 he joined Russian-backed mercenaries who seized energy and helped President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin to ascertain its rule over the occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk, in jap Ukraine.
“He was concerned within the group of torture camps within the occupied territories of the Luhansk area, the place prisoners of warfare and civilian hostages had been subjected to inhumane torture. Filiponenko himself personally brutally tortured individuals,” Ukraine’s navy intelligence mentioned.
GUR revealed the precise tackle the place Filiponenko lived in Luhansk and added that Ukraine’s spies knew the place different high-profile collaborators had been dwelling within the occupied territories.
“All warfare criminals can be punished,” GUR mentioned.