Ukraine today claimed responsibility for the car bomb killing of Mykhailo Filiponenko, a lawmaker and former high-ranking military official in Ukraine’s Russian-held Luhansk region (east).

“THE a special operation for the extermination of the executioner Filiponenko was carried out together with representatives of the resistance movement” of Ukrainians in that area, the military intelligence services (GUR) from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said.

Filiponenko “was involved in the organization of torture chambers” for “prisoners of war and civilians” Ukrainians in the occupied part of the Luhansk region and “himself personally” participated in the torture, according to the GUR announcement on Telegram.

Earlier today, media and Russian officials had reported the death of Mikhail Filiponenko in an explosion in his vehicle in Luhansk.

The Russian Investigative Committee released images showing a 4X4 type vehicle with broken windows and the left front door damaged. According to the same source, an investigation into “terrorist action” has been opened.

The leader of the occupation administration of the Luhansk region, Leonid Pasechnik, spoke on Telegram about a “real man”, who according to him still had “many plans” to “develop” in the occupied region.

Another local MP in this occupied territory, Yuri Yurov, reported on Telegram that Mikhail Filiponeko had already been the target of a bomb attack in Luhansk against his car on February 21, 2022. From that blast, he “miraculously” came out alive. , according to the same source, and only the driver was injured at the time.

Mikhail Filiponenko was one of the founders of the Luhansk separatist army in 2014 at the start of the war between Kiev and pro-Russian and Moscow-backed troops.

The four Ukrainian regions annexed by Moscow (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhia) are frequently hit by attacks, sometimes deadly, targeting officials of the Russian occupation administration.