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When a bomb exploded near a Kharkiv court and wounded 14 activists on Jan. 19, many saw it as evidence that Russia’s war against Ukraine had spread beyond the borders of the embattled eastern Donbas region.

Among those who blame Russian security services for masterminding the attacks are the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, which on Jan. 20 stepped up anti-terrorism measures all over Ukraine.

Residents of the big cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk have a hard time feeling safe with the doubling in the last month of explosions classified as Russian-orchestrated attacks by law enforcement agencies — from five in December to 10 so far in January.

The Jan. 19 Kharkiv explosion was one of the only two attacks outside the war zone in which people were wounded. Most of those injured were members of the ultranationalist Right Sector party who came to court to support an activist accused of illegal weapons possession. Some of the injured were hospitalized in an intensive care unit, but all are expected to live, Andrei Sanin, a spokesman for the Right Sector’s Kharkiv branch, said by phone.

Markian Lubkivskyi, an adviser to SBU head Valentyn Nailyvaichenko, said on Jan. 20 that several people had been detained in connection with the attack and that searches, including at the Iskhod (Exodus) pro-Russian group’s office, were conducted.

In another attack that caused injuries, three police officers and two others were wounded in Kyiv on Jan. 18. They were answering an emergency call by a man who had told them about an alleged attempt to rape his girlfriend. When the officers rang the doorbell, the man who opened the door threw a grenade at their feet. The police detained three suspects.

On Jan. 20, the SBU stepped up anti-terrorism measures because of what appeared to be attacks coordinated by Russian security services.

Lubkivskyi told the Kyiv Post that he couldn’t disclose the details of the new security measures imposed, saying only that now law enforcement agencies are keeping a closer eye on major infrastructure sites and strengthening security at public events.

“(Terrorists) are aiming to undermine Ukraine from within,” Lubkivskyi told the Kyiv Post, adding that terrorism is one of Russia’s tools in the war against Ukraine. “This is definitely a planned set of linked actions carried out to demoralize people, scare them, spread chaos and create protest moods.”
One of the latest incidents occurred on Jan. 20, when a bridge near the village of Kuznetsivka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast collapsed under a cargo train that was carrying iron ore to Volnovakha in Donetsk Oblast. As a result, 10 cars derailed.

This was the fourth railway explosion over the last two months.

In January, three fuel tanks on a freight train were set on fire at the Shebelynka station in Kharkiv Oblast, and a bomb blew up a freight tank with petrochemicals at the Odesa-Peresyp railway station. On Dec. 24, explosives hidden under the railways hit a train at the Zastava 1 railway station, also based in Odesa.

Odesa has become the main target of attacks in the last two months.

Railroad cars are blown off their tracks in Zaporizhia Oblast on Jan. 21 when a bridge exploded.

Two explosions took place near EuroMaidan offices in Odesa in December to January.  On Jan. 16 and Dec. 10, attackers exploded bombs aimed at volunteer groups collecting funds for the Ukrainian army.
Odesa may  be targeted because it is a port city, while Kharkiv is a center of Ukraine’s military industry.
After Russian representatives signed the Minsk cease-fire deal in September, its secret services are believed to have started developing an alternative strategy to destabilize Ukraine with terror.

“Terrorist activity has been gradually increasing since September and now it has become very visible,” a high-level security source said, without giving his name because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

The attacks appear to be aimed at showing support for Russia, rather than inflicting death or catastrophic damage, Vyasheslav Tseluiko, an expert at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, said by phone.

“Blowing up the fence of a military barracks that has no significance has zero effect,” he said, referring to the Dec. 2 explosion at the gate of National Guard barracks in Kharkiv.

But the two recent blasts in which Right Sector members and police officers were injured show that attacks are becoming more violent.

Tseluiko said that the attackers could be targeting Kharkiv and Odesa because pro-Russian sentiment is relatively stronger there. However, the Kremlin and its allies don’t have enough resources for fomenting an uprising, he added. By contrast, it’s easy to carry out a terrorist attack, especially given that “our special services have not carried out their functions for 20 years,” he said. “A bomb can be made by any third-year chemical faculty student. Nor do you have to be smart to shoot at a building from a grenade launcher.”

The terrorism is assisted by the large amount of explosives and weapons being smuggled from the war zone.

Despite the ease of carrying out such attacks, the SBU says it has managed to foil seven terrorist plots over the last two months.

In the most prominent case, the SBU arrested a woman from Luhansk with an explosive device equivalent to three kilograms of TNT on Dec. 19 in Kyiv. The security agency said she was planning an attack in the capital.

On the same day, the SBU detained five residents of Dnipropetrovsk city allegedly planning arsons and explosions at military enlistment offices and courts. “The group was trained in the Russian city of Belgorod on the use of explosives and organization of so-called protest movements and guerilla campaigns,” the SBU said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected] and Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].