Claims responsibility

Ukrainian insurgent group claims responsibility for Kherson attack

From CNN’s Olga Voitovych and Mariya Knight 

An attack on the election headquarters of a pro-Russian party in the occupied Kherson region has been claimed by a Ukrainian insurgent group.

The group, Atesh, says it blew up the headquarters of the United Russia Party in Nova Kakhovka on Tuesday. The group said three Russian soldiers were killed in the attack, a claim that was denied by a pro-Russian politician in the area. 

“As a result of the fire caused by the explosion, all the documentation that the occupiers had brought for the elections scheduled for September 8-10 was burned. We will not tolerate Russo-fascist pseudo-elections on our territory!,” the group said in a statement posted online.

The town’s mayor Vladimir Leontiev described it as a “terrorist attack,” according to Russian state news agency TASS. “No one will disrupt our peaceful life,” he said.

Some context: Nearly half of Ukrainians held in detention centers in Kherson have been subjected to widespread torture including sexual violence, according to a report published earlier this month, compiled by the Mobile Justice Team, part of the UK, EU and US-sponsored Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA).

The report adds that suffocation, waterboarding, severe beatings and threats of rape were other techniques commonly used against victims by Russian guards in the Kherson torture chambers.

Russia has repeatedly denied accusations of torture and human rights abuses in Ukraine despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, investigated, compiled and shared by international human rights organizations and news organizations.