In addition to the conventional war that is being fought in Eastern Ukraine there is also a campaign of targeted assassinations targeting Russian appointed officials and sympathizers. In this dirty war car bombs are playing a prominent roll. Many are pointing the finger at the influence of British intelligence within the Ukrainian forces for upsurge in these terrorist tactics. The British armed forces suffered heavily due to car bombs in Northern Ireland while dealing with the issues of nationalist Irish para-militaries.

This low intensity war has been ongoing since 2014 and it will be interesting to see how this develops within and outside of Ukraine and Novorussia. Also will the Russians start targeting Ukrainian officials etc. At this point they seem focused on the conventional war within the area of the Special Military Operation.

Recent Incidents

• June 24th: A car bomb has killed a Moscow-imposed official in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Kherson. The official who died after his car exploded on June 24 was Dmytro Savluchenko, who led the Directorate for Family, Youth, and Sports.
• July 12th: Yevgeny Yunakov, the Russian appointed administrator of Velikyi Burluk, was  killed by a car bomb.
• August 11th: Askyar Laishev, a former Ukrainian security official who joined the Russian-backed Luhansk People’s Republic as head of intelligence in 2014, was killed by a bomb in his car.
• August 12th: Oleg Shostak, head of the propaganda unit in occupied Melitopol, was badly injured by a car bomb
• August 20th: Daria Dugina, 29, was murdered in Moscow by Ukrainian intelligence when a bomb exploded under the driver’s seat of a vehicle that belonged to her father, Alexander Dugin.
• August 22nd: Igor Telegin survived an assassination attempt by a car bomb. Telegin is deputy head of the administration’s domestic policy department.
• August 24th: The Moscow-appointed mayor of the Russia-occupied Ukrainian town of Mykhaylivka, Ivan Sushko, was killed by a car bomb. Sushko died in the hospital after a bomb “intentionally placed under the seat of his vehicle” exploded.
• September 6th: Car bomb leaves head of Russian-occupied Berdiansk ‘fighting for his life’. Artyom Bardin, head of the administration set up by the Russians in the port city of Berdiansk, was taken to hospital “in serious condition” after a bomb exploded in his vehicle, according to local authorities in this city.

The best defense against the car bomber is to deny them access to the vehicle. If you are under an IED threat and the vehicle is secured in a garage, the entrance and driveway to the garage needs to be physically checked before the vehicle is moved. There could be a device attached to the door of the garage or a mine in the driveway. If the vehicle has to be left unattended, the surrounding area needs to be searched and then the vehicle. The area around a vehicle must be searched as you approach it for any suspicious vehicles or people; the criminals may have found your car and are waiting for you to approach it to kidnap or assassinate you. Searching a vehicle for IEDs is a basic and important skill and needs to be practiced regularly if you are under a threat from car bombs or assassination.

Orlando “Andy” Wilson

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