A series of explosions qualified as terrorist attacks strikes a number of strategic Ukrainian cities, overshadowing the winter holidays.
The latest in a series of explosion took place in Odesa, home to 1 million residents, on the night of Jan. 4. An explosion happened at a doorstep of the office of the local EuroMaidan coordination center, that has been lately engaged in raising donations for Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the east of the country.
No one was injured. Police classified the attack as an act of terrorism and started an investigation.
In the past five months, Odesa has seen at least seven blasts. Three of them happened in December and targeted pro-government and volunteer organizations helping army, and a store of patriotic souvenirs. Two explosions hit a railroad track and a bar, leaving three injured. Finally, on Jan. 3, an explosion took place at the Odesa-Peresyp railway station. The blast targeted freight tanks carrying petroleum products. Police qualified it as a terrorist attack.
A bomb that hit the EuroMaidan center on Jan. 4 has destroyed the main door of the center, damaged office blinds and shattered the windows in the apartment blocks nearby. Police says an unknown man threw a bomb at the doorstep around 10:45 p.m. local time.
Odesa is not the only city attacked by unknown bombers.
Earlier in December Ukraine’s Security Service detained a group that planned a number of terrorist attacks in Dnipropetrovsk. The saboteurs were led by local Communist party activists, who escaped to the territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east.
“The group led by the Communists planned a number of explosions targeting banks and public places and seizing weapons at military units,” Markian Lubkivsky, an adviser to the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said on Dec. 23.
Suspected Communist activists fled to the territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists.
After the investigation of the site, Ukraine’s SBU found 400 grams of trotyl, 24 improvised explosive devices, grenades and electric detonators.
Around five explosions were tracked in Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast since November.
Overnight Dec. 23 an unknown group blew up a railway bridge over the river Kalchyk near Mariupol.
Earlier Azovstal steel plant reported an armed attack on its workers. Unknown men opened fire that killed one of the workers, while another one was severely injured, according to the Metinvest group which owns the plant. Police found a bag with explosives near the site.
In Mariupol, Azov volunteer battalion stepped up to guard the public places, while authorities also strengthen security.
Oleksiy Melnyk, a military expert of Razumkov Center, says the attacked cities weren’t just random ones.
“Odesa, Mariupol as well as Kyiv and Kharkiv are those sensitive spots where Russia-backed forces feel there’s still a possibility to destabilize the situation,” Melnyk explains.
He believes that all the latest accidents are “a common terrorist tactic.”
“The main idea (of the explosions and bomb threats) is to intimidate the residents. However, it also may harm the legitimacy of the power,” Melnyk told the Kyiv Post.
He says that apparently the terrorists sent a message to the society and the government by targeting “symbolic objects” like volunteer centers.
According to the expert, the blasts scare the people and distract authorities from the conflict in the east of Ukraine.
