[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9977]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    UKRAINE MILITARY OFFICIAL KILLED

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as co-chair of the Ukrainian 
Caucus, and I will include in the Record an article reporting on an act 
of violence that has taken place in Ukraine.
  Yesterday, a bomb exploded in the car of a high-ranking Ukrainian 
special forces official, Colonel Maksim Shapoval, in Kiev, in what 
Ukrainian authorities are calling an act of terrorism.
  Shapoval's heroic unit fought in eastern Ukraine, where a conflict 
between Ukraine and Russia has been raging since 2014, with mainly 
citizens being killed, over 10,000 innocents in that country.
  Shapoval's death comes almost a year after prominent Ukraine 
journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed by a similar explosion in Kiev as 
he drove to work. No one has been brought to justice in that murder 
case.
  A number of other public figures have also been killed under shady 
circumstances in and around Kiev in recent years.
  Denis Voronerkov, a former Russian member of Parliament who fled to 
Ukraine, was shot dead in central Kiev in March 2017.
  Lawyer Yuri Grabovsky, who had represented a Russian soldier captured 
in Ukraine, was found dead with a gunshot wound in 2016.
  This has all the fingerprints of Putin's Russia, who will stop at 
nothing to blunt liberty. America must be a friend to liberty and an 
enemy to tyranny. I call on this administration to help Ukraine defend 
itself against these hostile acts of war against liberty.

                   [From theguardian, June 27, 2017]

   Ukrainian Military Intelligence Officer Killed by Car Bomb in Kiev

                             (By Alec Luhn)

       A high-ranking Ukrainian military intelligence official has 
     been killed by a car bomb in Kiev in what authorities are 
     calling an act of terrorism.
       An explosive device destroyed the Mercedes being driven by 
     Col Maksim Shapoval at 8.15am local time, police said.
       The car's bonnet was blown open and its roof and driver 
     side door almost completely destroyed, video footage from the 
     scene showed.
       ``The picture of the crime looks like it was a planned act 
     of terrorism,'' interior ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko 
     told local media. The military prosecutor said his office 
     would lead an investigation.
       Police said a female passerby with shrapnel wounds to her 
     legs received medical treatment after the explosion, as did 
     an elderly man who suffered shrapnel wounds to his neck.
       According to the defence ministry, Shapoval was a colonel 
     in military intelligence. The Ukrainian Pravda newspaper 
     quoted law enforcement sources saying he had headed a special 
     forces unit.
       Yury Butusov, editor of the Censor.net news website, said 
     in a Facebook post that Shapoval's unit had fought in eastern 
     Ukraine, where a conflict with Russia-backed separatists that 
     broke out in 2014 has killed more than 10,000 people. He 
     claimed Russian intelligence could have killed Shapoval.
       Shapoval's death comes almost a year after prominent 
     journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed by a similar explosion 
     in Kiev as he drove to work. A documentary film released last 
     month revealed evidence suggesting that Ukraine's spy agency 
     may have witnessed the planting of the car bomb that killed 
     Sheremet. No one has been brought to justice in the murder 
     case.
       A number of other public figures have also been 
     assassinated in and around Kiev in recent years. Denis 
     Voronenkov, a former Russian MP who fled to Ukraine, was shot 
     dead in central Kiev in March. Pro-Russian journalist Oles 
     Buzina was shot in a drive-by in 2015, and lawyer Yuri 
     Grabovsky, who had represented a Russian soldier captured in 
     Ukraine, was found dead with a gunshot wound in 2016.

                          ____________________