Ukraine charges Russian officer with planning terror attack in Kyiv in 2014.

Ukrainian authorities charged a Russian special forces officer with preparing a terrorist attack in Kyiv in 2014 and implicated him in a successful terrorist attack near Luhansk in 2015, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported on Oct.

18. The SBU identified the suspect as Major Konstantin Maslyanko, with a call sign "Mexican," an officer of special operations forces of the Russian Defense Ministry. Maslyanko reportedly arrived in occupied Luhansk at the start of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 to create groups for subversive operations on Ukrainian territory, the Prosecutor General's Office said.

For this purpose, the major recruited a woman from Luhansk, equipped her with explosives, and tasked her with carrying out a terrorist attack in Ukraine's capital. The woman was detained by the SBU near Arsenalna metro station in Kyiv, where the woman left a bag with three kilograms of TNT and a detonator, the prosecutors said. Ukraine's Security Service also said that Maslyanko's unit was also involved in a terrorist attack near Stanytsia Luhanska in January 2015.

In this incident, a man claiming to be local resident approached the Ukrainian military checkpoint at the contact line with Russian-occupied territories and gave the soldiers a jar of honey, which contained explosives. The jar detonated, killing one soldier and injuring two others. The perpetrator was later detained and sentenced to prison.

According to the investigation, Maslyanko is currently in the occupied territories of Donetsk or Luhansk oblasts and continues to carry out subversive activities against Ukraine.

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News Editor

Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent.

He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press.

He also volunteers as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukrainer.

Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.