Blast at Ukraine army recruitment centre kills perpetrator

Blast at Ukraine army recruitment centre kills perpetrator

A person died setting off an explosion at an army recruitment centre in western Ukraine on Wednesday, officials said, the latest in a string of similar attacks amid the country's divisive mobilisation drive.

Blast at Ukraine army recruitment centre kills perpetrator

Kyiv has been trying to replenish the ranks of its army struggling to hold off Russian troops, with the spate of attacks on draft offices coming amid public criticism of authorities' approach to military recruitment.

Ukrainian police said it was the ninth such attack on a recruitment centre this year, alleging that the perpetrator who died in the explosion had been recruited by Russian agents.

"An explosion occurred on the territory of the Kamianets-Podilsky district territorial centre for recruitment and social support," said Sergiy Tyurin, the head of the Khmelnytsky Regional State Administration.

Four other people were wounded, he said.

Ukraine's police chief, Ivan Vygivsky, told local media that the attack was orchestrated by Russia "to create a false opinion in society, destabilise the situation and create a negative attitude towards the security and defence forces in our country."

In all nine cases this year, the perpetrators have been detained, he added.

The police force said earlier that together with Ukraine's Security Service they had detained three men suspected of attacking a recruitment centre in the central city of Pavlograd, also on Russian orders.

"The offenders were recruited via messenger and promised a monetary reward for committing the crime in Pavlograd. On the instructions of their Russian handler, the traitors manufactured explosives and detonated them near the object he had designated," police said.

Attacks on recruiting authorities are rare but not unheard of in both Ukraine and Russia as tensions run high over efforts to mobilise men for the war.

Several Russian military offices have been hit in arson attacks, including after President Vladimir Putin ordered an unpopular mobilisation drive in September 2022.

A person who set off a blast on Saturday at a draft centre in Rivne, a town in northwest Ukraine, was also killed in the explosion, with six others wounded, police head Vygivsky said.

And in another incident on Saturday, a man with a hunting rifle shot dead a Ukrainian army recruitment soldier and escaped with a conscript before both were caught by police, according to authorities.

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