A Kremlin-backed politician was killed in a car bomb attack in the occupied Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, local media reported Wednesday, citing his son."As a result of an explosive device that detonated in Mikhail Filiponenko's car, the People's Council deputy received injuries incompatible with life," his son told the Luhansk Information Centre, a news agency run by Moscow-installed officials in the region.The People's Council is the local parliament of Luhansk, one of four Ukrainian regions Russia said it annexed last year despite not having full military control over them.Filiponenko was a former head of Luhansk's local militia a Moscow-backed separatist army that had been fighting against Kyiv since 2014.Russian media published photos of a destroyed vehicle parked along the side of the road, with blood smeared across the driver's seat, in what they said was the aftermath of the attack.Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, announced later on Wednesday that it had launched a criminal investigation into the car bombing.Several high-profile supporters of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, as well as Kremlin-backed officials in territories seized by Russian forces since then, have been attacked and assassinated.Last month, a gunman in annexed Crimea shot and wounded Oleg Tsaryov, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who was once purportedly slated to lead a pro-Russian puppet government in Kyiv.Moscow has claimed that Ukrainian secret services were behind that and several other attacks, including the car bombing of nationalist Darya Dugina outside Moscow last year and the bombing of military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a St.
Petersburg cafe in April.There was no immediate comment from Kyiv on Wednesday's bombing.