(Reuters) – A Russian-backed lawmaker in the city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine was killed in a car bomb attack on Wednesday, the region’s Russian-backed governor said.
Mikhail Filiponenko, a lawmaker in the Russia-backed Luhansk assembly and a former top security official in the region, died after a bomb planted in a car exploded, a local news agency cited his son as saying.
Filiponenko, who had been active in Luhansk’s pro-Russian separatist movement since 2014, had served as one of the top commanders in the army of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic.
In September, he was elected to the regional parliament in a vote that drew widespread international condemnation.
Bomb blasts targetting senior Russian-installed officials in parts of Ukraine Moscow claims as its own have been a regular occurence since Russia ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in Feb. 2022.
Luhansk is one of four Ukrainian regions Russia claims to have annexed since the start of its invasion, something Kyiv and its Western allies strongly reject.
(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Gareth Jones)
