You're reading: Experts see more Russian-backed terrorist attacks ahead in Ukraine

Security experts believe that Ukraine will face more terror attacks after a blast in Kharkiv ripped through a EuroMaidan Revolution anniversary march on Feb. 22, killing four people.

While many terrorist acts and explosions preceded the Kharkiv blast, the Feb. 22 attack was the deadliest in a long time. Many blame Russia, saying the Kremlin has moved into a new phase of its campaign to destabilize the country, beyond outright military invasion and economic blackmail.

“Russia has started an absolutely cynical practice of organizing terrorist attacks in Ukrainian cities outside of the anti-terrorist operation zone,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Yevhen Perebyinis said, attributing the change in tactics to Russia’s lack of a decisive military victory after one year of fighting. “Nervousness in the Kremlin is clear: the blitzkrieg has failed.”

Four men accused of carrying out the attack were arrested in its immediate aftermath, according to the Security Service of Ukraine, better known simply as the SBU. The arrested suspects had trained in Belgorod, Russia, were carrying Russian weapons, including a Shmel rocket launcher, and had planned a series of further attacks, the organization said.

Previous bombings have caused injuries or killed the bomber, but the blast in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city with a population of some 1.43 million, is the first to take civilian lives since the start of the conflict.

Ukraine’s authorities have reported at least 20 terror plots since December, four of which they were able to thwart. Independent experts suggest that these reports are only the tip of the iceberg.

“There have been a number of reports, but due to the nature of the threats they [the SBU] do not report all the cases, so that gives you an idea of the scale of the threat,” said Oleksiy Melnyk, director of foreign relations and international security at the Razumkov Centre, a leading Ukrainian think tank.

“I’m afraid the level of threat will remain considerably heightened, it depends not only on their (terrorist) plans, but on the effectiveness of our security forces.”

The SBU refused to comment on the number of groups or plots they were monitoring and in which cities, but indicated the threat was indeed substantial:

“The answers to your questions are classified information, we can’t tell you because it would lead to panic in the country,” Olena Gitlyanska, an SBU spokeswoman, told the Kyiv Post. “They are all linked to the criminal groups ‘DPR’ and ‘LPR’,” she added, referring to the self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The explosion in Kharkiv occurred as hundreds of marchers were marking the one-year anniversary of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s flight from the country.

According to the chief of the SBU’s main investigation department, Vasyl Vovk, a Soviet-made MON-100 anti-personnel landmine was used in the attack. The device can be activated by remote or by sensor, and has a blast radius of up to 115 meters.

Eyewitnesses believe the explosive device was timed to explode after all the marchers had arrived on the square, but a delay and a truck moving ahead of the marchers prevented the bomb taking significantly more casualties.

“The march was delayed by 10 minutes, then just as people started to move, we saw the explosion go off just one hundred meters away, to our left and on the road side. It seemed like the device was hidden in the snow near a tree,” Dmitriy Komaykov, one of the march participants, told the Kyiv Post.

“Luckily a truck was maneuvering there, and it took most of the shrapnel. I saw two dead, lying in blood, just next to the truck, which was completely torn apart by metal shards. Can you imagine if it had been later? My wife and I went to the march with our baby daughter and our older son.”

A local journalist and contributor to Euromaidan PR, Vasiliy Ponomarev, told the Kyiv Post he had seen at least three people killed.

“I heard an explosion but thought at first it was a banger, then I looked in that direction and saw people start to fall,” he said. “Thirty steps from me I saw a man with his head smashed, covered in blood. He was dead.”

“Another was lying on the ground and medics rushed to resuscitate him. They couldn’t. Three ambulances arrived, one took another guy who was bleeding, his guts were ripped open. They put him in an ambulance but they had no defibrillator. Eventually he died too.”

The SBU’s Vasyl Vovk acknowledged that the incident had exposed shortcomings with the country’s anti-terrorist operation, but stressed that work was being done to address them. In doing so, he gave a number of clues as to where future terrorist attacks might take place.

“We’re correcting plans to fight terrorist threats, involving more and more counter-terrorist experts to work in Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia,” Vovk said.

Odesa has so far been the focus of terrorist activities, with at least nine reported incidents.

“All these groups are connected to terrorist organisations in DNR/LNR, which as we know have instructions from Russian Federation,” said independent security expert Oleksiy Melnyk.

“Most of the attacks take place in Odesa and Kharkiv. They are, at least, trying to maintain tensions in these regions – a general atmosphere of unrest, so that they can then seize the opportunity when it arises. A constant underlying threat creates the opportunity for more active actions in future.”

Kyiv Post news editor Maxim Tucker can be reached at [email protected] and via Twitter: @MaxRTucker