Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Vasyl Hrytsak has said that law enforcers have detained a suspect in a terrorist attack committed in Kyiv in October 2017, in which two people were killed and three more, including Ukrainian MP Ihor Mosiychuk, were injured.

"Just a few days ago, we detained one of those who took part in organizing and committing this terrorist attack... I can say that we have solved this terrorist attack in cooperation with the prosecutor's office," Hrytsak said in Odesa on Tuesday, April 3.

He specified that one person had been detained and that two more were "in another territory, we understand where they are."

According to Hrytsak, during the searches law enforcers had seized several kilograms of TNT, an RPG-26 grenade launcher, grenades, other items and documents that could point to the person's involvement in committing this crime.

"I do not want to disclose the details," he said, adding that a briefing on this crime will be held in the near future.

As reported, two people were killed and three more, including Radical Party MP Ihor Mosiychuk and political analyst Bala, were injured in an explosion outside the building of the Espresso TV channel late on October 25, 2017. Both of them were hospitalized and underwent surgery. Those who were killed are two police officers - Mosiychuk's security guard, Ruslan Kushnir, who died on his way to hospital, and 36-year-old local resident Mykhailo Mormil.

The explosion was qualified as a terrorist attack. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is overseeing the investigation.

Mosiychuk said late in February 2018 that several terror suspects were in Chechnya and that the perpetrators of the crime had been identified. </s> KIEV (Reuters) - A Ukrainian lawmaker wounded in an explosion in Kiev that killed two people blamed Russia on Thursday for the blast while investigators said they were considering various motives for what they called an act of terrorism.

 Ihor Mosiychuk, a member of the populist opposition Radical Party, was hospitalized but did not suffer life-threatening injuries, while his bodyguard and a passerby were killed. Two others were wounded.

 Since fighting with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine broke out in 2014, the number of incidents involving explosives outside the conflict zone has increased.

 There has been a spate of vehicle bombings over the past 18 months in Kiev, the capital, and elsewhere, but investigators have failed to find those responsible. 

 Ukraine's state security service (SBU) said that unknown perpetrators had rigged a motorcycle with explosives on Wednesday that detonated as the lawmaker left a TV station.

 Radical party leader Oleg Lyashko said he had no doubt the incident was politically motivated, while Mosiychuk blamed Russia. "I believe that the initiators are in Moscow, the executors are in Kiev," Mosiychuk said on Facebook.

 Russian involvement is one of the possible motives being investigated, deputy Kiev prosecutor Pavlo Kononenko told journalists.

 "Another explanation is Mosiychuk's political activity, his public position within our country," he said. "A third explanation is an attempt on Mosiychuk's life for personal reasons."

 The Kremlin dismissed the accusations as a product of anti-Russian sentiment.

 "Beyond all doubt, these are new signs of this anti-Russian campaign which has unfortunately swept across Ukraine and Kiev," Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.

 Relations between Kiev and Moscow collapsed in 2014 after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and backed a pro-Russian separatist insurgency in eastern Ukrainian regions. 

 Radical Party lawmaker Evhen Deidei posted photos on his Facebook page from the scene of Wednesday's attack which showed the burnt-out shell of a motorcycle in front of a damaged vehicle. 

 "Judging by the damage to the car and the shrapnel holes in the doors, the power of the explosion was pretty strong," he said. "There is a lot of blood on the stairs, where Ihor was situated at the time of the explosion."

 The interior ministry's Shkiryak said political analyst Vitaliy Bala was one of the three wounded in the blast.

 In June, a colonel in Ukraine's military intelligence was killed by a car bomb in central Kiev. In 2016 a prominent investigative journalist, Pavel Sheremet, was killed by an explosive device in his car. 

 

 (Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Robin Pomeroy/Mark Heinrich) </s> Ukraine security chiefs Vasyl Hrytsak and Anatoliy Matios

Vasyl Hrytsak, the head of the SBU intelligence agency, told a news conference in Kiev that eight members of the Russian group had been detained and charged in connection with the assassination plot. Ukraine's chief military prosecutor Anatoly Matios said two of the hit squad members were staff officers of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency. He said the other six were Ukrainian nationals.

There was no immediate reaction from Russia's GRU. The SBU has reported before that it captured groups belonging to Russian special agencies. Mr Matios said: "Those detained were involved in the attempted murder of an employee of the Ukrainian defence ministry's intelligence service in Kiev in April.” He said the group had planted a bomb beneath the intended target’s car which had gone off prematurely, badly injuring one of the accused.

Head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Vasyl Hrytsak

The SBU released a video of the same incident which showed a man placing the bomb under a car before a big explosion. The video showed a man lying in a hospital bed with part of his right arm missing saying he was Russian and born in Moscow. The issue of how to deal with Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014 and backs pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, is prominent ahead of Sunday’s vote, with President Petro Poroshenko casting himself as the commander-in-chief Ukraine needs to defend the country. The GRU is thought to be behind the attempted murder of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in a nerve agent attack in Salisbury in March 2018.

Vasyl Hrytsak shows images of the arrested GRU agents </s> A car blast in central Kiev has killed a senior official of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, according to a statement on its website. The attack has been described as a “terrorist act.”

“This morning on June 27 in the Solomensky district of Kiev, a car exploded killing a member of the main intelligence department of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, Colonel Maksim Shapoval,” the ministry’s statement reads.

National police, rescue workers, and bomb disposal engineers arrived at the scene of the blast, which has been branded a “terrorist attack.”

At 8:16am local time, police were notified that a Mercedes had blown up, according to Kiev police.

READ MORE: Renowned journalist killed in Kiev in car bomb attack

Local media report that the victim was 39 years old and served as the head of the military intelligence special forces reserve.

CCTV footage has emerged, showing the moment of the blast.

Two other people injured by the explosion received shrapnel wounds to their legs and chin. </s> Authorities in Ukraine have arrested Nadiya Savchenko, an ex-combat pilot who became a member of parliament after spending nearly two years in a Russian jail, on charges she was planning to carry out a coup.

According to the allegations, Savchenko planned an attack on parliament using grenades and automatic weapons acquired from pro-Russian separatists in the east.

General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko on Thursday told parliament about the alleged plot, after which legislators voted to remove her political immunity.

"The plan was to overthrow the constitutional system by carrying out terrorist attacks on Kiev's central government quarter ... using weapons received from the leaders of the so-called DNR," Lutsenk said, referring to Donetsk People's Republic.

However, Savchenko, an outspoken critic of the Ukrainian government, claimed it was a plot by undercover agents working for the Ukrainian government to discredit her.

She said she knowingly went along with the agents in order to reveal the scheme to the public.

"This is not a terrorist act, this is a political provocation to make the authorities look ridiculous," Savchenko said in a statement.

"To accuse me of treason against Ukraine ... and to make anti-heroes out of yesterday's heroes simply because they do not agree with the policies and positions of the current government, that’s all the authorities can do," she said.

She also accused authorities of betraying the ideals of the 2014 revolution during which pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovich was overthrown.

Savchenko said that if the current situation in Ukraine continues, "the danger in parliament won’t be me, your danger will be your people".

Savchenko, an ex-military helicopter pilot, became famous in 2014 when she was captured by Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine and sentenced to 22 years in prison for her alleged role in the deaths of two Russian journalists in the conflict zone.

Her refusal to bend after nearly two years in Russian custody made her a national hero in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned her in 2016 as part of a swap for two Russian servicemen jailed in Ukraine.

Savchenko's demeanour during her ordeal in Russia earned her the nickname of Ukraine's "Joan of Arc".

After her return, she was awarded the Star of the Hero of Ukraine award and became an opposition figure in the Ukrainian parliament. </s> Ukrainian MP Nadiya Savchenko, once hailed as a symbol of resistance against Russia, was detained on Thursday over accusations she plotted a terrorist attack in Kiev, authorities said.

"She was detained after the prosecutor general read out her indictment," the prosecutor's spokesman Andriy Lysenko told AFP by phone hours after lawmakers voted to lift Savchenko's immunity from prosecution.

Savchenko had planned "a large-scale terrorist act in the centre of the Ukrainian capital," general prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko told lawmakers in parliament earlier.

He claimed she had made a deal with leaders of Russian-backed separatist republics in the country's east to "obtain the weapons necessary for such an attack, in particular mortars of 120 mm caliber, small arms, sniper rifles, combat grenades".

Lutsenko said the planned attack would have brought a "sea of blood, chaos" to central Kiev.

He showed lawmakers a 30-minute video of a woman who looked like Savchenko talking to two apparently Ukrainian officers about plans to attack parliament.

"I propose a coup d'etat, they should be eliminated physically, all of them in one moment," said a woman resembling Savchenko in the video, before drawing a plan of parliament to explain where to throw grenades inside the building to create an explosion.

"Just one person can do it in a minute and a half...I myself will certainly be able to throw six grenades," the woman in the video said.

Savchenko was present in the chamber during the video broadcast and watched it with a smile, but did not provide any explanation.

The parliament approved lifting Savchenko's immunity from prosecution as an MP and, in a separate vote, authorised her arrest by 268 votes to 10, minutes after Lutsenko's speech.

In 2014, the 36-year-old former combat pilot was captured while fighting against Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine and found guilty of involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists in the country's war-torn east.

She spent around two years in a Russian prison and became a symbol of Ukraine's resistance, launching several hunger strikes.

Savchenko returned to a hero's welcome to Kiev in May, 2016 as part of a prisoner swap with Russia.

But her political star has faded since her return to Kiev, where she became a lawmaker for former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko's political party.

She has regularly stirred controversy and contradicted President Petro Poroshenko's policies by supporting direct talks with pro-Kremlin separatists and visiting rebel-held territory. </s> The Security Service of Ukraine has arrested Verkhovna Rada member Nadiya Savchenko.

At 2.20 p.m., MP Savchenko escorted by officers of the Security Service of Ukraine entered the building of the SBU at 3a Askoldov Lane in Kyiv, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"The authorities have made their decision. Now its your turn," she said addressing Ukrainian people through media.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on March 22, law enforcers handed a notice of suspicion to MP Savchenko in the case on preparing terror attacks in the center of Kyiv.

On March 22, the Verkhovna Rada supported motions of the Prosecutor General's Office and stripped MP Savchenko of deputy immunity and gave consents to her arrest and detention. </s> A senior Ukrainian military intelligence officer was killed when a bomb detonated under his car in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev Tuesday, the Defense Ministry said, in an act the government is treating as terrorism.

Ukraine’s Chief Military Prosecutor said that authorities were looking for traces of involvement by Russia, who has supported... </s> Ukrainian MP Nadezhda Savchenko, once glorified as a Ukrainian “hero” persecuted by Moscow, has been detained again – this time by her fellow countrymen. The former pilot is now suspected of plotting a coup and a terrorist attack.

Savchenko was arrested by Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) officers right in the building of the Verkhovnaya Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) on Thursday. Moments before that, the MPs stripped Savchenko of her legal immunity that allows Ukrainian MPs to enjoy protection from prosecution and agreed to her arrest.

The lawmakers were shown a video obtained by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office that allegedly shows Savchenko discussing details of a coup plot with her accomplices. According to the video, the MP even planned to assassinate Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. She is suspected of plotting a terrorist attack, planning to kill members of parliament, government, and the president, and organizing a coup.

Savchenko’s sister, Vera, said she expects Ukraine’s international “partners” and particularly the US to react to her sister’s arrest. “I would like to look at the reaction of those people, who fought for her [Nadezhda Savchenko], of the US representatives… I would like to see the reaction of these people to the actions of our corrupt authorities,” she told journalists, adding that the US strongly warned against corruption in Ukraine, yet nothing was done.

Savchenko first rose to prominence both in Ukraine and in the West after she was arrested in Russia on charges of being an accessory to the murder of two Russian journalists who were killed by mortar shelling while reporting on the Ukrainian conflict. Russian law enforcement said she served as a target spotter for the mortar crew and deliberately had them target non-combatants.

Following her arrest in Russia, Savchenko was immediately declared a hero of Ukraine. She was elected as an MP in absentia, appointed a member of Ukraine’s delegation to PACE and made into a symbol of struggle against Russia at a time when she was tried and actually sentenced to 22 years in prison for the crime. The Western media also portrayed her as a heroic figure persecuted by Moscow.

Savchenko was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and returned to Ukraine in May 2016.

But things changed for the former hero after she become a fierce critic of President Petro Poroshenko, talked about running for president, and acted on her own in an effort to make a deal with self-proclaimed independent republics in the East. She then quickly alienated many Ukrainian politicians.

On Thursday, Savchenko came to the hearing of her case in the parliament with two grenades. She admitted that she helped smuggle weapons from Donbass and said that a coup is the “the most humane way of changing the power.” She claimed that “only a lazy person now does not” speak or think about “taking down that government” or “blowing up” the president’s administration or the parliament. Yet, Savchenko called her actions “surrealism and political provocation,” and she didn’t actually intend to carry out the plan.

Savchenko’s confrontation with authorities snowballed over the last week. The prosecutors initially wanted to question Savchenko over alleged links to a man named Vladimir Ruban, who was earlier arrested while trying to smuggle a large cache of weapons from the rebel-controlled part of eastern Ukraine into territory that remains under Kiev’s control. The Ukrainian authorities claim that Ruban was also planning an armed coup in Kiev.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko requested that the Verkhovna Rada strip Savchenko of legal immunity last week after she failed to show up for a scheduled questioning. Earlier, the MP accused Lutsenko of covering up his involvement in the deadly 2014 Maidan shooting, which was one of the factors that eventually prompted the Maidan coup. She also accused several Ukrainian MPs of leading the snipers to the Hotel Ukraine, from which shots were later fired at people on the streets, thus implying that the 2014 mass killings might in fact have been initiated by the protester side.
Authorities in Ukraine announce the arrest of a suspected terrorist in connection with a 2017 Kiev attack that killed two and wounded three including MP Ihor Mosiychuk.