Ukrainian partisans killed a top Russian official in a daring attack behind enemy lines, inflicting a major blow on Putin.
Since the occupation partisans have operated in enemy territory, targeting Ukrainian collaborators for assassination.
In perhaps one of the most infamous cases, the Kremlin’s top man in occupied Kherson came within a whisker of losing his life in August 2022.
Vladimir Saldo’s cook and maid allegedly tried to poison the head of the Russian military-civilian administration, who was rushed to Moscow for treatment.
The Kremlin introduced a campaign of terror in the occupied territories in a desperate attempt to wipe out the partisan networks.
Yet despite the brutal clampdown, Ukraine’s partisans continue to score significant successes against their Russian foes.
Partisans placed a bomb under the car of Yevhen Ananievsky on Sunday, who was killed when the device exploded.
A video of the wreckage has been posted to social media, which shows the remains of the car being inspected by Russian investigators.
Ananievsky had held a number of positions in the Moscow-installed administration in the occupied areas of the Zaporizhzhia region.
He is widely credited with setting up torture chambers on the territory of the Berdyansk penal colony No. 77.
It is believed he was also involved in the interrogation of both Ukrainian military and civilian prisoners.
In a brief statement, Ukraine’s military intelligence said: “As a result of an explosion Yevgeny Ananyevsky, who was involved in the torture of Ukrainian prisoners, was liquidated.”
The use of torture by Russian officials has been well documented by the United Nations.
Former inmates of Russian prisons and detention centres have spoken of relentless beatings, electric shocks, rape, sexual violence and mock executions.
Some experts believe the torture of prisoners is a a systematic, Kremlin-endorsed policy.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said in September that “about 90 percent of Ukrainian prisoners of war have been subjected to torture, rape, threats of sexual violence or other forms of ill-treatment”.
