Is Putin turning to terrorism in Ukraine?

One bomb went off outside an office of the Council of Public Security on Dec. 10, another one destroyed railroad track outside Odessa on Dec. 24, right under a moving freight train. Thankfully there were no casualties—the driver managed to stop the train immediately. A few days later an as yet unidentified man carried one kilo of TNT explosives toward the headquarters of Ukrainian Patriotic Activists, but by accident the attacker was killed by his own bomb.

Last September, according to Dibrov, a group of five local men received an order from their alleged strategists in Moscow to fire at a checkpoint on the highway outside Odessa. “They were provided with a 
mortar and promised to be paid in exchange for a video of their attack, but police detained them; on Dec. 26 all five of them were exchanged for Russian prisoners,” Dibrov said.

For now Odessa’s terrorists do not target civilians. This week, a few days before Orthodox Christmas, the city’s parks and squares were full of families, and nobody seemed too concerned about safety. “The terrorists’ message is addressed to us activists but they should know that their bombs will not stop our work,” says Sergei Sarafanyuk, a member of the Odessa Euro-Maidan Coordination.