Russian colonel and one of Vladimir Putin’s ‘closest allies’ was killed in a suspected car bomb in Ukraine. The car of Bardin Artem Igorevich, who the Kremlin elected to oversee the city of Berdyansk in the Zaporizhzhia region, was seen engulfed in flames after a loud explosion was heard, says The Sun. Igorevich later died in the hospital from his wounds.
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Ukraine on the hunt
Although sources suspect that pro-Ukrainian forces are behind the car bombing, no one has claimed responsibility for the explosion. According to Gary Tabach, a former NATO chief based in Kyiv, Kremlin allies are being ‘hunt[ed] down’ in Russian-occupied territories. He said:
Guys who betrayed Ukraine; some of the deputies, some of the leaders of Ukraine who ended up in Russia right now voluntarily, will be for the rest of their lives hunted down.
He then told The Sun that Ukrainians have a lot of ingenuity when it comes to tracking people down, describing them as ‘innovative’ with a ‘very good imagination’.
A series of attacks
As The Sunhas pointed out, Igorevich is not the first Russian to suffer such a smoldering fate. His death comes weeks after the daughter of ‘Putin’s brain’, Darya Dugina, was killed in a Moscow car bombing suspected to have been targeted at her father.
Reportedly the mastermind behind many of Putin’s schemes, he has called for vengeance in the name of his daughter. Some reports suggest, however, that it was not Ukraine behind the attack – but Putin himself.
Days after Dugina’s death, a Putin official by the name of Ivan Sushko was killed in a similar blast while taking his daughter to kindergarten. His daughter was left unscathed, but his wife claims that her husband was targeted by ‘Ukrainian Nazis’.
Vladimir Rogov, a Putin loyalist, claims that Ukrainian forces are unfoundedly assassinating Russian-backed officials who are trying to ‘help improve the lives of ordinary people’. As tensions continue to rise, more and more individuals are joining the fallen.
Read more:
⋙ Vladimir Putin suspected of being behind the car bomb that killed Darya Dugina
⋙ Russia’s anti-Putin ‘National Republican Army’: What is it and does it really exist?