Russian special forces “booby-trapped” a wounded dog in a bid to strike terror in a Ukrainian town they left months ago.
Spetsnaz GRU saboteurs are believed to have launched a covert terror campaign far from the front line in a desperate bid to smash civilian morale.
The dog had been beaten until it could barely move and wired to a bomb, so civilians would come to his rescue and be blown up.
But residents in Makariv, north west of Kyiv, called Ukrainian bomb disposal experts to rescue the trapped pooch.
The dog, whose owner could not be found, has been named Fox and is making a recovery.
Russian forces murdered hundreds of civilians in the area before retreating in April after failing to reach Kyiv.
A source told the Daily Mirror: “This is more evidence the Russian plan is hopelessly fractured with the Kremlin now forced to send undercover soldiers on low-level ‘terrorist’ operations.
“This is what the GRU specialise in, undermining civil confidence in the war effort and inflicting horror rather like a terrorist group would.
“Covert operatives will be behind this, either having done it themselves or having recruited a sympathiser to set the booby-trap.”
A former British soldier serving in Ukraine with the International Brigade, said no one knows precisely where the GRU are operating.
He said: “We have heard that they have been in the west of the country and disguise themselves as aid workers.
“They are trying to gauge the spirit of local people and identify if there is any support for Moscow, while at the same time messing with the heads of local people by setting small IEDs that will kill innocent civilians.
“Disrupting communities and making people think the Russians are among them is a big psychological hit.”
Yesterday, the death toll from a Russian rocket attack on an apartment block in east Ukraine rose to 24.
And President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had carried out 34 air strikes since Saturday, while his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Moscow should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism over the apartment bombing.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin signed a decree extending a simplified Russian naturalisation process to all Ukrainians.
Previously, the procedure for acquiring citizenship applied only to the “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk.
