Unknown gunmen opened fire at top aide to Ukrainian President’s car in an attempted assassination at 10 am local time.
The driver suffered serious wounds during the shooting, Ukrainian police have said.
More than 10 bullets hit the vehicle during the attack.
It is unclear if screenwriter Serhiy Shefir, the first assistant to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,was in the car at the time.
“Unidentified individuals fired about 10 shots from a 7.62 caliber automatic weapon,” Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova wrote on Facebook.
He added that an investigation was underway for attempted murder.
A lawmaker told Reuters news agency that the aide, Serhiy Shefir, is safe. Shefir leads a group of advisers close to the president, who is currently in New York for the UN General Assembly.
Zelenskyy came to power on the promise to take on Ukraine’s oligarchs, Mykhailo Podolyak, another adviser to the president, said the attempted murder could be a result of that fight.
“This open, deliberate and extremely violent assault with automatic weapons cannot be qualified any differently than as an attempted killing of a key team member,” Podolyak told Reuters.
“We emphasize that the president’s policy aimed at fundamental transformation of the state will remain unchanged,” he added.
Ukraine Targeted?
Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denied media reports claiming that armed group kidnapped a passenger jet meant to evacuate people fleeing Afghanistan to Ukraine.
The reports quoted deputy foreign minster Yevhen Yenin as saying that the plane was diverted to Iran by armed attackers.
“Our plane was hijacked last Sunday by [unknown] people,” Yenin told Ukrainian public radio.
“On Tuesday, a group stole our plane. It flew to Iran with an unknown group of passengers onboard instead of carrying out the Ukrainians.”
However, ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko confirmed that all Ukrainian planes are safe.
