Kremlin's Puppet Leader For Ukraine is Shot Dead in Crimea
 |
| Oleg Tsaryov in 2014.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times |
Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
A Ukrainian former lawmaker whom the Kremlin had handpicked to lead a puppet administration in Kyiv, Ukraine, was shot and wounded in occupied Crimea in an apparent assassination attempt, Ukrainian and Russian officials said on Saturday.
The former lawmaker, Oleg Tsaryov, 53, a pro-Russian business executive, who participated in Moscow’s invasion, was shot as part of a “special operation” carried out this week by Ukraine’s domestic security agency, according to a senior Ukrainian intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.
According to Western intelligence agencies, had the Russian invasion succeeded, the Kremlin would have installed Mr. Tsaryov as Ukraine’s leader.
The targeting of prominent Russian and pro-Russian figures has long been part of the broader Ukrainian war effort and has continued apace even as fierce battles rage across a vast front line that has moved little in the past year.
After spending months trying to break through the Russian lines in the south, Ukrainian forces increasingly find themselves on the defensive as Russia renews assaults across eastern Ukraine.
While the Russian forces suffered some of their heaviest losses in months in attempts to encircle the eastern city of Avdiivka, Moscow appears determined to keep up the assaults there and along other lines of attack, Ukrainian and Western officials said.
Fierce fighting was also reported on Saturday around the city of Vuhledar, which is less than 20 miles from a critical Russian logistics hub in southeastern Ukraine.
Sitting at the nexus of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, Vuhledar has been the scene of some of the war’s bloodiest battles, including a disastrous Russian armored assault last winter.
Oleksandr Voitko, a Ukrainian soldier fighting in the area, told the Ukrainian broadcaster Espresso TV on Saturday that, having failed to capture Vuhledar by attacking it from the south, the Russian forces were now attacking from the northeast.
He compared the fight there to the current situation in Avdiivka.
“The first phase of these battles is similar,” he said. “There was a massive assault in Vuhledar, and we have seen it now. But in Vuhledar, although the situation was difficult, it was easier because there was no enemy advance from the flanks.”
The State of the War
Bracing for Attacks: As another winter nears, anxiety is rising among Ukrainian civilians and officials that Russia may target its power systems as it did in 2022.
Slovakia’s U-Turn: Slovakia said it was halting all military aid to Ukraine, in a policy shift that is unlikely to change the balance of forces on the battlefield but that delivers a symbolic blow to Kyiv.
Evacuating Children: The Ukrainian government has ordered the evacuation of hundreds of children in villages across southern Ukraine, and is sending police door to door to persuade parents that it is time to escape the widespread Russian shelling in the region.
A Bloody Equation: The dynamics of the conflict in Ukraine — Europe’s deadliest war in generations — remain exceedingly violent and increasingly complicated by factors far from the battlefield.
Hundreds of miles to the south, Ukraine’s military continues to look for weak spots in the Russian defense. Ukrainian forces have stepped up amphibious assaults across the Dnipro River this month, and they have managed to hold onto and expand several positions, according to analysts.
It remains unclear if the assaults are part of a broader operation or simply an attempt to force their Russian counterparts to stretch their forces to deal with the threat.
Russia has increased artillery barrages and is engaged in a furious bombing campaign against settlements across the southern region of Kherson.
Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian southern command, said on Saturday that Russia had dropped at least 27 powerful guided bombs on settlements in the Kherson region over the course of a single day.
“These are means of terror, which the enemy uses all over the front line,” she said during an appearance on national television.
Ukrainian forces have been trying to establish a presence on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, and the Russian military has sought to demolish any structures that could be used by their opponents for shelter.
Russian bombs fired as part of that effort have fallen on areas controlled by Ukraine as well as parts ostensibly under Moscow’s control.
The barrage has taken a heavy toll on civilians on either side of the river, but Russia does not allow independent news or humanitarian organizations to operate in occupied areas, so there is little reliable information about the conditions there.
Away from the thunder of the artillery at the front, Ukrainian saboteurs and resistance fighters continued to work behind enemy lines to undermine the Russian war effort.
Both sides will often confirm attacks by Ukrainian partisans, but the details of the incidents often differ and are impossible to confirm independently.
Both sides released photos and videos of a car that was blown up in the occupied city of Berdiansk in southeastern Ukraine on Monday, for example.
Kremlin-appointed officials said that one Russian soldier had been killed in that attack. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, however, said that four representatives of Russia’s federal security service, the F.S.B., had been in the car, adding that it was unclear how many had died.
At War: Images From an Expanding Ukraine Conflict
A photographic chronicle of the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At least one of those killed, the Ukrainian agency said, was “a Russian war criminal who committed brutal torture of local citizens.”
After Mr. Tsaryov’s shooting, accounts of the attack were also given by the Russian authorities and by his family.
Vladimir Rogov, the Russian-appointed official in southern Ukraine, said that Mr. Tsaryov had been shot twice in an assassination attempt, had lost a lot of blood and was in “grave condition.”
Mr. Tsaryov’s family used his Telegram channel to issue a statement confirming the attack, which they said took place at around midnight on Friday at a spa hotel in Yalta, southern Crimea, where he lives.
“There is no information about the criminal,” the family’s statement said.
Ukrainian forces preparing to head to the front line near the eastern town of Avdiivka on Tuesday.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times
Ukraine’s director of military intelligence, Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, told Reuters this year that his country would continue “eliminating enemies of their state.”
“We were doing it and we will be doing it,” he said.
The Ukrainian intelligence official who spoke to The New York Times on Saturday said that Mr. Tsaryov had long been on a “list of traitors.”
The official added that Mr. Tsaryov was not just a person with pro-Russian views but that he had also accompanied Russian forces as they tried to seize Kyiv early in the invasion.
American intelligence officials told The New York Times last year that Mr. Tsaryov had been identified by the Kremlin as someone it could install to lead Ukraine after its soldiers toppled Kyiv’s elected government.
Mr. Tsaryov was a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from 2002 to 2014 before joining the campaign led by Russian proxy forces in eastern Ukraine seeking to secede from the country.
Marc Santora has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa. More about Marc Santora
Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine
The Future of Ukraine: The European Union and NATO have promised a path to membership for the country. But real partnerships will hold risks and benefits.
Photos: Photographers with The New York Times and other news organizations have been chronicling the war, capturing a slice of how soldiers and civilians have experienced it. Our photographers say some images will never leave them.
Defying Isolation: After the invasion of Ukraine, the West tried to cut Russia off from the rest of the world. But wealthy Russians continue to rely on a network of middlemen to circumvent the restrictions.
A Wartime Partnership: The alliance between President Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has become critical to the world order.
Zelensky’s Rise: The Ukrainian president, once brushed off as a political lightweight, has become a household name, representing his country’s tenacity.
Comments