Photo: State Border Guard Service of Ukraine
Four people were killed and another 12 were injured when a passenger detonated a grenade at a railway station in the Zhytomyr region of northern Ukraine on Friday, the Ukrainian police have reported.
According to the police, the explosion occurred at 10:50am local time on the platform at a railway station in the town of Ovruch, 200km northwest of Kyiv.
News outlet RBC Ukraine said a man pulled out an explosive device as border guards were checking passengers’ documents. The explosive device, which then detonated, was later confirmed to have been a grenade.
The Ukrainian State Border Guard Service said that one border guard and two civilians were killed in the incident, in addition to the perpetrator himself. A further 12 people were injured — two servicemen and 10 civilians, it said.
The police said the bomber had been identified as a 23-year-old man living in the eastern city of Kharkiv. The border guard service noted that the same man had recently been detained while trying to illegally cross the border in the west of the country. An investigation into the incident has now been opened.
In a similar incident in December 2023, two people were killed and 24 others were injured when local politician Serhiy Batrin detonated several grenades in a government building in a village in western Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region. In November 2024, Batrin was found guilty of committing an act of terror and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
