Ex-Ukrainian MP shot in Crimea

Former Deputy of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada Oleg Tsarev is in critical condition after being shot twice in an assassination attempt on Thursday night in the city of Yalta on Russia’s Crimean Peninsula.

Reports of the attack have been confirmed by Tsarev’s close relatives, according to the politician’s official Telegram channel. The administrator of the channel noted that the incident took place around midnight on the territory of the sanatorium where Tsarev lives.

“When the ambulance arrived, Oleg was unconscious and had lost a lot of blood,” the post said.

The chairman of the ‘We are together with Russia’ movement, Vladimir Rogov, also confirmed the attack and has since stated that the former Ukrainian deputy is currently in intensive care. 

Russian MP Yana Lantratova has reported that Tsarev recently underwent surgery. Meanwhile, some media reports suggest that the politician may have to be transported to Moscow for further treatment.

On Friday, TASS reported, citing the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), that a criminal case has been opened into the assassination attempt and that investigators were working to establish the culprit.

The head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Aleksander Bastrykin, has also reportedly ordered the agency’s Crimean department to open a criminal case over the assassination attempt and take measures to establish all the details of the incident and identify all possible suspects.

Tsarev was a deputy of the Ukrainian parliament from 2002 to 2014 from the ‘Party of Regions’ and served as the deputy head of the faction. He also ran for the Ukrainian presidency in 2014 but withdrew his candidacy during the race.

In 2014, Tsarev supported the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics’ rebellion against the new government in Kiev following the Western-backed Maidan coup and became a speaker of the parliament of ‘Novorossiya’ – the union of the Donbass republics.

Later on, he announced his departure from politics and switched to managing health clinics on the Black Sea, becoming the director of a sanatorium in the city of Yalta.

Nevertheless, he was deemed a traitor in Ukraine and was sentenced in absentia to 12 years for “attacking the territorial integrity of Ukraine” and attempting to “overthrow the constitutional order.” 

He has also been listed on Ukraine’s infamous Mirotvorets, or Peacekeeper, database, which has often been dubbed Kiev’s ‘kill list’, as a number of prominent journalists and other public figures featured on the website have been murdered over the years. An update on Tsarev’s profile on the website states that Thursday’s attempt on his life was carried out by ‘Russian security services’.

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