On 1 June, there was an assassination attempt in Kyiv on Adam Osmayev, the commander of the pro-Ukrainian Chechen battalion named after Dzhokhar Dudayev. Osmayev was wounded and is currently in hospital in serious condition. His attacker was also injured. Ukrainian authorities allege Russian involvement in the attack.

Osmayev, his wife, and Amina Okuyeva, a volunteer in his battalion, were invited to a car by a man who introduced himself as a correspondent of French daily Le Monde. When Adam and Amina sat in the back seat, the assassin took out a box which he claimed contained a gift from the newspaper’s editors. He opened it, took out a pistol, and fired at Adam. Okuyeva fired back from her own gun, managing to disarm him.

According to Anton Herashchenko, an official adviser at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the attacker was an agent of Russia’s intelligence services. Herashchenko  confirmed that the man is alive and will testify.

Speaking about the identity of the assassin, Herashchenko said that he had a Ukrainian passport with stamps from Russian and Belarusian border crossings. However, several Ukrainian media outlets reported that he was a Chechnya-native known in certain circles as a bandit from St Petersburg, Artur ‘Dingo’ Denisultanov-Kurmakayev. Ukrainian TV channel Espreso called the man ‘Kadyrov’s assassin’ and said that he was behind the murder of an ex-guard of Ramzan Kadyrov, Umar Israilov, in Vienna in January 2009.