Russian FSB major-general is seriously injured along with his son when Ukrainian bomb hidden in his mobile phone explodes
- Yuri Afanasevskii, 64, is in a critical condition in hospital as is his son after attack
- Russian sources have blamed the Ukrainian SBU secret service for the attack in the Russian-occupied Luhansk Peoples Republic
A major-general in the Russian FSB security services is seriously wounded after an explosion at his house in Luhansk.
Yuri Afanasevskii, 64, is in a critical condition in hospital as is his son, who reports said was also caught up in the attack.
Explosives were reportedly planted by a Ukrainian sabotage group in a mobile phone that had been handed to him.
Russian sources blame the Ukrainian SBU secret service for the attack in the Russian-occupied Luhansk People’s Republic.
Afanasevskii was head of customs in the area of Ukraine’s Luhansk that Vladimir Putin’s forces annexed in 2014 and last year claimed to incorporate into Russia.
Yuri Afanasevskii, a major-general in the Russian FSB security services, is seriously wounded after an explosion at his house in Luhansk, according to reports
He was sanctioned by Britain, the EU, Canada, Switzerland and Japan.
The major-general was shown to have financial interests in the British Virgin Islands.
A woman has been detained suspected of handing him a mobile phone and a concealed explosive. She is under investigation for attempted murder and handing an explosive device to the FSB officer.
She handed him ‘a mobile phone with an explosive device that was set off after the phone was activated. The attacker is detained, she has already confessed,’ said the Russian Investigative Committee.
Investigators had ‘interrogated a wide range of people’ and ‘seized objects of interest’ over the explosion.
A report by RT said the FSB official’s wife was also injured in the explosion.
A statement from the Russian Investigative Committee said: ‘The man and his son received multiple injuries. They are currently in a medical facility.’
Reports of the attack on Afanasevskii came just days after another Russian Major General was killed by a drone in Russia while mowing his lawn on his day off.
Alexei Chernykh, deputy chief of a local branch of the anti-corruption police, was blown up by a drone at his home in the Russian village of Schetinovka, reports said.
The village sits just one mile from Russia’s border with Ukraine in the Belgorod Oblast, which has come under frequent drone strikes in recent months as Ukraine has stepped up its cross-border attacks.
Telegram channel Baza, which has known ties to Russian security services, said a drone dropped a bomb onto Chernykh’s property on Sunday, August 27.
Afanasevskii is understood to have been attacked in the Russian-occupied Luhansk People’s Republic, where heavy fighting is raging (pictured)
Alexei Chernykh (pictured right), deputy chief of a local branch of the anti-corruption police, was blown up by a drone at his home in the village of Schetinovka late last month
‘A Ukrainian drone dropped ammunition on his site in Shchetynovka,’ the Telegram channel reported. ‘At that moment, Alexey was on his day off and was mowing [his] lawn,’ it added, saying that he was killed in the incident.
The police lieutenant colonel would have turned 40 on the day he was allegedly assassinated, according to information on his social media account.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov accused Ukraine of being behind a drone strike in the region on the same day, saying that it had killed a ‘civilian’.
He accused Ukraine of dropping ‘an explosive device from a drone’ which hit a civilian who was ‘at his summer cottage mowing the grass’ at the time.
Gladkov said the man died from shrapnel wounds.
He did not name the person killed in the attack.
Ukraine, which has yet to achieve a major success in its summer ground counteroffensive, has struck deep into Russia in recent months, including an attack on the Kremlin in May and numerous drone attacks on civilian targets in Moscow.
Ukraine typically does not comment on who is behind attacks on Russian territory, although officials have publicly expressed satisfaction over them.
If Chernykh’s death is confirmed, he would become the latest high-ranking Russian official to meet his end since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine.
At least six generals have been confirmed by Russian sources to have been killed since February 2022 (including four which held the rank of Major General and two Lieutenant Generals), with Ukraine claiming the true figure to be 15.
Either way, the number of Russian generals killed in the conflict is unprecedented since the Second World War.
The tally has been attributed to senior commanders personally going into the field to address command difficulties, the faltering performances of Russian forces on the frontlines, insecure communications and US intelligence gathering.
Late in July, Lieutenant-General Oleg Tsokov, 51, was killed in a strike believed to have been carried out using a British-supplied storm shadow missile.
Tsokov was personally known to Putin and had been sanctioned by Britain and the EU for his role in the war against Ukraine.
At least six generals have been confirmed by Russian sources to have been killed since February 2022 (including four which held the rank of Major General and two Lieutenant Generals) – unprecedented numbers since the Second World War
Meanwhile, Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday approved the dismissal of Oleksii Reznikov as defence minister and Rustem Umerov as head of the main privatisation agency on Tuesday, clearing the way for Umerov to take over from Reznikov.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday he was sacking Reznikov and proposed Umerov to replace him.
To do so, he required parliament to approve their removal from their current roles and to support Umerov’s appointment as defence minister.
Parliament completed the first stage of the process in two separate votes on Tuesday, and is expected to back Umerov’s appointment in a vote on Wednesday. Reznikov resigned on Monday.
The moves amount to the biggest shakeup of the defence establishment in 18 months of war with Russia.
Reznikov has been at the forefront of Kyiv’s lobbying for Western weapons to fight Russia’s invasion, but his departure after months of corruption allegations against his ministry is not expected to have a big impact on military operations.
Confirming parliament had voted to remove Reznikov, the Defence Ministry hailed his work and listed some of the weapons Ukraine has received since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
‘He held this office for 22 months and made the impossible possible by ensuring large-scale arms supplies for the #UAarmy from the free world,’ it said on social media platform X.
It added that F-16 fighter jets, which Kyiv has not received so far, ‘will make Ukraine’s victory inevitable.’
The outcome of the vote to remove Umerov from his current post was confirmed by several lawmakers who attended the parliamentary session.
Umerov, 41, is a Crimean Tatar and former lawmaker who since 2020 has been a member of a government task force working on strategy to end the occupation of Crimea, which was seized and annexed by Russia in 2014.
Source: Read Full Article
