Ukraine picking off traitors collaborating with Putin’s walkover election after spate of car bombs in occupied territory

PUTIN sympathisers in the occupied territories of Ukraine are reportedly being targeted in a new wave of car bombings.

One "collaborator" who was organising the Russian presidential election in occupied Zaporizhzhya is thought to have been killed this week.

Kremlin-appointed deputy mayor Svetlana Samoilenko, 46, had been running the illegal election in the Russian-annexed city of Berdyansk.

According to Russia's Investigative Committee, a handmade explosive device was placed under the driver's seat of her car on March 6.

A Russian security official said: "When the owner of the car, who was a voting member of the  election commission, got into her ZAZ Tavria car, the improvised explosive device went off.

“The victim died from her injuries in a medical facility."

Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency identified her as “collaborator” Samoilenko and she had been “eliminated”.

She had been appointed by the occupying forces as the deputy mayor of the port city, and was a key organiser of this week’s elections - running from March 15 to 17.

“She intimidated and terrorised Berdyansk residents, forcing them to participate in an illegal fake vote,” the Ukrainian agency alleged.

Separately, the car of an Ukrainian SBU secret service agent who switched sides to Russia after the invasion was also blown up.

Former SBU agent Igor Tsiferov, 52, was also targeted by a car bombing in Dokuchaevsk, in Donetsk region in a reported assassination bid.

His Skoda car exploded but his condition is not yet known, according to Ukrainian sources.

Military journalist Andrei Tsaplienko said: “He went over to the enemy’s side and worked in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic’s  Ministry of State Security."

He added that he has long been on Ukraine's wanted list, although there is no information about Tsiferov’s condition yet.

Ukraine is known to have been operating sabotage teams inside Russia-occupied areas of its country since the invasion.

In November last year, two of Putin's security officials were blown up in a car bombing in the Russian-held eastern city of Luhansk.

Both deputy interior minister Lt-Col Oleg Shumilov and criminal investigations chief Lt-Col Vladimir Pakholenko were taken to hospital with serious shrapnel wounds after the explosion.

At the time, Andriy Cherniak, a representative of Ukraine's military intelligence, said that they worked with local Ukrainian partisans to plot and carry out the car bomb attack.

In August, former Ukrainian security service member Askyar Laishev was targeted by members of Ukraine's National Resistance in the Donbas.

Laishev had turned against his people, switching to the Moscow-backed Luhansk People's Republic as head of intelligence in 2014, but the National Resistance got their revenge on August 11.

The National Resistance bombed his car as he drove through the city, and although he was reported to have gotten out of the car after the blast, he died in hospital days later.

The National Resistance said: "We emphasise once again that collaborationism is harmful to your health, so every traitor has vain hopes that retribution will not come to him."