Inside Ukraine’s assassination programme

THE OPERATION was a month in the making. Yevhen Yunakov, the mayor of Velykyi Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, had been identified as a collaborator with the Russians. “Caucasus”, a special-forces commander, and a group of local officers were given the job. His men watched their target meticulously for days: when he shopped; when and where he moved; the extent of his security. Once they detonated their bomb, from a distance, they disappeared to safe-houses inside occupied territory. The group would return to Ukrainian-controlled territory only weeks later, after the town had been liberated. Yunakov’s body has never been found.