Ukraine’s spies target Russian figures in increasingly audacious attacks

Whatever she knew in advance, there is little doubt that Ukrainian security services use deception to lure local Russians who may perhaps be sympathetic to Ukraine’s cause.

Acts can range from organising sabotage to, in this case, priming a bomb.

The SBU is not above sending a hitman to achieve its goal, perhaps the most notorious spy means of assassination.

A year ago, a pro-Russian former Ukrainian MP, Ilya Kyva, was shot dead in a village outside Moscow. The killer managed to get unnoticed into the grounds of a hotel and shot Mr Kyva twice while he was walking in a park.

Again, Ukraine made no official statements, but sources in the SBU said it was them.

Only five days ago, a leading Russian missile scientist, Mikhail Shatsky, was shot dead in a forest outside Moscow. In that case, the killing was pinned on Ukraine’s military intelligence service, although there was no confirmation.

Shatsky was responsible for modernising Russia’s Kh-59 and Kh-69 cruise missiles that have caused so much destruction and loss of life in Ukraine.

The fact that Kirillov’s killing took place within days of Shatsky’s murder shows how deep Ukraine’s spies have penetrated into Russia.

It is not just politicians or Russians connected to the military who have come under attack.

In August 2022, Darya Dugina was murdered in a car bomb attack, in an apparent message to her father, Aleksander Dugin, regarded as the Russian ideologist justifying Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine.