Ukraine Arrests Russian Agents Detonating Homemade Bomb in Shopping Mall

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it arrested two Russian agents responsible for setting off a bomb at a local shopping mall on Christmas Eve.

The SBU’s Friday press release said “a 23-year-old drug addict” from Berdychiv, a city in Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region, made the improvised explosive device (IED) and handed it over to a 41-year-old accomplice from Mariupol to set off the bomb, which went off under the door to a shopping mall in Berdychiv on Dec. 24.

The SBU said the IED was “disguised in a food container and filled with metal balls from ball bearings to enhance the impact,” ostensibly made under instructions “from a curator from the Russian Federation.”

According to the press release, the 41-year-old suspect detonated the bomb from a distance “using a mobile phone and a homemade electric detonator attached to the explosive,” where he recorded the act with a “mobile phone hidden in a box” opposite the mal, broadcasting it in real-time.

The SBU said no one was injured in the blast. Working alongside Ukraine’s National Police, it arrested the 41-year-old suspect within two hours when he attempted to board a bus to Kyiv. The SBU said it arrested the 23-year-old suspect at her roommate’s residence a few hours later. 

The SBU believed the attack was financially motivated.

“According to the case materials, the perpetrator of the terrorist attack was a 41-year-old immigrant from Mariupol, who had previously served time for robbery, theft, and drug crimes.

“The IED was made by a 23-year-old drug addict from Berdychiv, who came to the attention of the occupiers when she was looking for money for a ‘dose’ in Telegram channels,” the press release states.

The two are charged with committing a terrorist act and face up to 12 years in prison and confiscation of property if convicted.