Bomb blast injures top police official in Russian city – authorities

A bomb attack has injured a senior police official in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region, the country’s law enforcement authorities reported on Tuesday.

The deputy head of the regional office of the Interior Ministry was taken to a hospital after being wounded by an improvised explosive device, the Investigative Committee said in a statement. The bomb was placed at the gate of his home in the city of Melitopol and went off when the official opened it in the morning heading to work, the agency said.

The committee released footage from the scene of the attack, which showed a car – presumably used by the unnamed official – with its backdoor windows shattered. There was also a hole in the ground next to the gate of the suburban house and some debris from the property’s outer wall.

The Zaporozhye Region was part of Ukraine and joined Russia last year after voting for the move in a referendum. Kiev has rejected the ballot, calling it a “sham.” The historic capital of the region, Zaporozhye, remains under Ukrainian control, and Melitopol was chosen by the new government as its new administrative center.

Kiev considers regional officials who accept Russia’s sovereignty to be traitors. There were a number of assassination attempts against such targets over the months of the conflict, which Kiev neither claims credit nor denies masterminding.

Also on Tuesday, three people suspected of killing another security official in Zaporozhye Region were arrested, according to the regional branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB). They were described as a “saboteur group” consisting of one Ukrainian national and two Russian citizens.

The FSB alleged that they were involved in the April 27 murder of Aleksandr Mishchenko, a regional police deputy chief, and were preparing another targeted assassination against a local official in the near future.