Blast in Ukraine capital wounds lawmaker, kills bodyguard

MOSCOW – An explosion in Ukraine’s capital has killed two people and wounded five others including a member of parliament, the Interior Ministry said Thursday.

The blast happened late Wednesday near the entrance to the internet television station Espresso where Ihor Mosiychuk, a lawmaker with the nationalist Radical Party, was making an appearance. The explosion injured five people, including Mosiychuk, and killed his bodyguard and a passer-by.

The bomb was planted under a scooter parked outside the television studio, said Olena Gitlyanska, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Security Service. Gitlyanska said investigators were looking into all possible theories. Ukrainian authorities rushed to call the latest bombing an act of terrorism.

In a message on Facebook from the hospital where he is being treated, Mosiychuk said he suspects Russia was behind the bombing. Mosiychuk was a commander of the Azov Battalion, a volunteer regiment that fought Russia-backed separatists in southeastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called for police to solve the “bloody and cruel crime” as soon as possible.

The blast is the latest in a series of targeted bombings in Kyiv this year. In June, a bomb planted under a car has killed a senior Ukrainian military intelligence officer.