Top Putin general seriously wounded after mobile explodes in failed assassination bid

A top Russia general is clinging to life after an assassination attempt. One of Vladimir Putin’s top generals narrowly survived an assassination attempt when a bomb-rigged phone detonated in his hands. Major-General Yuri Afanasevskii was blown up at his home in Luhansk on Sunday. The general is the former chairman of the State Customs Committee of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic controlled by Russia. The Russian commander was rushed to a local hospital with shrapnel wounds to his neck, head and stomach, according to sources within Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) who spoke to RBC-Ukraine. The general’s 21-year-old son was also injured in the blast and had three of his fingers amputated, which the state-run news agency TASS described as a “moderate condition”. Russia’s Investigative Committee said that a woman had been arrested after she handed Afanasevskii the explosive-laden mobile phone.