UKRAINE is reaping a bloody toll from officials and warlords who sided with Putin as they are serially wiped out by hit squads.
Two treacherous Ukrainians were assassinated in just 24 hours as one was blown up with a car bomb and another shot in the head.
Oleg Popov - who has been labelled a war criminal by Kyiv - was killed in the attack in Russian-occupied Luhansk.
Footage showed the 51-year-old's burning car after an explosion - and it came just hours after the killing of traitor MP Ilya Kyva.
Ukrainian special forces are reported to have been behind the killing as they continue to take out Vlad's stooges.
Popov was an MP and senior official in the so-called Luhansk People's Republic - which has since been declared part of Russia.
He was in an armed pro-Putin unit that seized a Ukrainian intelligence service base during the Russian-backed uprising in Luhansk in 2014.
He turned against Ukraine as the Russians annexed Crimea and Putin's forces took control of the eastern regions.
Russia’s FSB secret service is investigating his death.
Ukraine's SBU intelligence agency confirmed its role in his assassination, reported Ukrainian Prvada citing a source in the secret service.
Popov had previously dodged attempts on his life - but his traitor pal Yuri Yurov confirmed his death.
Hours earlier, a turncoat ex-Ukrainian MP who called on Vladimir Putin to use weapons of mass destruction on his homeland was assassinated by Ukraine's SBU security service.
The body of former lawmaker Ilya Kyva, 46, who openly supported Kremlin, was found "covered in blood" at the Velich Country Club Hotel in the village of Suponevo in Moscow.
Kyva was found with a gunshot wound to the head, with law enforcement sources confirming to that he was "liquidated by using small arms."
Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov appeared to openly claim his state was responsible for the killing.
“We can confirm that [Ilya] Kyva is the real deal,” he said.
“This is the fate that befalls the biggest traitors of Ukraine, as well as the henchmen of the Putin regime.
“He was one of the biggest and most disgusting scum, a traitor and collaborator.
“So here we can only state that justice….has different forms…
“Among others, characters like Kyva…unfortunately, there are still plenty in Russia.”
Kyva's body was found "covered in blood" in the park area in the Odintsovsky district, Russian media reported citing emergency services.
A video released by the Russian Investigative Committee shows investigators searching through the snow at the place where Kyva was killed.
In images captured from the video, metal detectors can be seen in use as investigators presumably look for the murder weapon.
Kyva's death comes just hours after claiming in his final social media post that Volodymyr Zelensky would be forced to flee to Britain.
Five hours before his death from a suspect knife wound to the left temple, he posted: “Zelensky's only option is to flee to England, but even from there he is extradited when it is favourable to the Crown or dies when it is necessary for the Kremlin.”
A Kremlin propagandist, who appeared on obediently state TV shows, he had alleged Zelensky was an MI6 stooge and cocaine addict.
He saw the US failure to back Zelensky’s plea for more cash and weapons this week as a victory for Putin and “the countdown to Zelensky's removal from power”.
Before Putin's invasion of Ukraine, he was an MP with Ukraine’s opposition Platform For Life party and advocated that Russia and Ukraine need to unite.
Following his comments after Russia's invasion he was stripped of his parliamentary mandate.
Last month a Ukrainian court sentenced him to 14 years in absentia on charges of treason.
The cause of death was still being clarified, said Russian sources.
A former policeman and official, he led the Socialist party in the Ukrainian parliament from 2017-19.
In 2019 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Ukrainian presidency, but then turned to Russia.
He asked Putin for political asylum, and a Russian passport.
Ukraine’s Channel 24 said the “liquidation” of Kyva near Moscow was “a special operation of the SBU” [intelligence service].
Hit squads have also been on a spree of assassinations and attempted killings of Putin stooges - many of them through car bombings in occupied territories.
Last month, two of Vlad's security officials were reportedly blown up in a brazen car bombing in occupied Ukraine.
Earlier on, another Putin crony was fighting for his life after he was shot in an assassination attempt in occupied Crimea.
In August, Putin "collaborator" Askyar Laishev was wiped out by Ukrainian resistance forces in a car bomb attack.
Serhiy Moskalenko, chief of the regional pre-trial detention centre during Russia's occupation of Kherson, was also killed in a car bombing.
