Vehicle explosion kills soldier in Odesa, authorities suspect terrorist attack
A Ukrainian soldier was killed after his vehicle exploded in the southern city of Odesa on Feb. 6, in what local security services have called a terrorist attack.
The victim of the explosion, which took place early in the morning, was a 21-year-old local man, local police wrote after the incident.
Later in the day, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) opened a criminal investigation into the explosion, having qualified it as a terrorist attack, the agency told Ukrainska Pravda.
Across Ukraine, the burning and sabotage of Ukrainian military vehicles parked inside urban areas has become a serious issue over the last year, with Russian special services often recruiting teenagers with the offer of a quick cash payout.
Successful killings of Ukrainian soldiers themselves remains a rarity. In one such isolated incident, a National Guard serviceman was killed in December 2025 by one of two explosions set off in Kyiv.
The following day, SBU officers arrested three Ukrainian men in their 20s who had been recruited by Russia over Telegram to build and plant explosive devices.
Meanwhile, on the morning of Feb. 6, Russian general Vladimir Alekseev, deputy commander of the GRU military intelligence agency, was shot several times near his apartment building. The identity of the assailant is currently unknown.
In late 2024, another Russian general, chemical and biological warfare chief Igor Kirillov, was killed in Moscow by an electric scooter rigged with explosives in a targeted SBU operation.
