(Kyiv) A Ukrainian local official was shot dead by a gunman on Tuesday in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia under Kyiv’s control, the national police said, as political assassinations have increased on both sides of the front.
“In Zaporizhzhia, police are looking for a man who shot a local official […] who died of his injuries,” she said on Facebook.
According to the police, who opened a murder investigation, the assailant opened fire on this official in front of an apartment building.
Zaporizhia is about twenty kilometers from the front line.
Several assassinations of officials installed by Russia in occupied areas of Ukraine have taken place over the past two years, blamed by Moscow on the Ukrainian security services.
Attacks targeting Ukrainian officials in areas controlled by Kyiv are rarer, but Ukraine has claimed to have foiled several assassination attempts against President Volodymyr Zelensky, other senior officials or their relatives.
