A series of explosions targeting or affecting Ukrainian police facilities in Lviv, Mykolaiv and Dnipro within a matter of days has prompted renewed concern in Kyiv over a possible campaign of destabilisation aimed at law enforcement.
On Monday, 23 February, an explosion at a non-operational petrol station in Mykolaiv injured seven police officers who had gathered there for a shift change, according to Ukraine’s National Police chief Ivan Vyhivskyi. Two officers were reported to be in a serious condition. Reuters, citing Vyhivskyi, said the officers had parked their vehicles at the site before the blast.
The Mykolaiv incident followed a deadly bombing in Lviv over the weekend. Ukrainian authorities said a patrol was called to a reported break-in at a shop, only for explosive devices to detonate after officers arrived. One 23-year-old policewoman was killed and at least 24 other people were injured. Reuters reported that investigators described the devices as improvised explosives and that a suspect had been detained. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly blamed Russia and said the perpetrators were likely recruited online.
On the same day as the Mykolaiv blast, media reports in Ukraine also said an explosion occurred in a police administrative building in Dnipro (Dnipropetrovsk region), damaging premises and a vehicle but causing no casualties. These reports said the circumstances were being investigated.
Taken together, the incidents have led some Ukrainian officials and commentators to argue that the attacks are not isolated episodes but part of a broader effort to undermine confidence in the state’s security institutions. Vyhivskyi has publicly described the Lviv and Mykolaiv explosions as a targeted attack on the law enforcement system and an attempt to destabilise the country.
The argument presented by commentators is straightforward: attacks on police carry a dual effect. First, they inflict casualties on a visible arm of the state. Secondly, they risk fuelling public anxiety and mistrust by suggesting that even uniformed officers can be lured and attacked in routine situations. In the Lviv case, the use of a false emergency call followed by sequential explosions was described in reporting as a “double-tap” tactic, increasing concern about deliberate targeting of first responders.
This interpretation fits a wider Ukrainian assessment that Russia has increasingly combined front-line military pressure with sabotage, covert action and information operations inside Ukraine. Financial Times reporting on the Lviv bombing cited Ukrainian officials as saying Russian services have expanded recruitment of local operatives for sabotage and terror attacks, while the SBU has warned of growing attempts to orchestrate such acts.
At the same time, direct evidence linking each specific incident to Russian state agencies has not been made public in full. Ukrainian authorities have made accusations in relation to Lviv, but the investigations into the Mykolaiv and Dnipro explosions were still developing on Monday evening. Any broader conclusion about a coordinated campaign therefore remains, for now, an assessment advanced by Ukrainian officials and commentators rather than a fully documented finding released to the public.
The attacks can be framed as a new stage in a Kremlin “special operation” focused on terror against Ukraine’s law enforcement bodies. In this reading, the political purpose is to deepen public fatigue, spread distrust, and amplify anti-police sentiment, including through social media influence operations. Historical parallels with the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia — a long-disputed and politically charged subject — suggest a broader pattern of security-centred destabilisation narratives.
Such comparisons are likely to remain contested. What is not in dispute is the immediate operational implication for Ukraine: police forces and emergency responders now face an elevated risk of attacks involving deception, including fake calls and staged incidents designed to draw personnel to a location before detonation.
Against that backdrop, Kyiv is also moving towards a wider policy response beyond policing tactics on the ground. On Sunday evening, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko and SBU deputy head Ivan Rudnytskyi said Ukraine should consider tighter regulation of Telegram, arguing that the platform is being widely used to recruit people for sabotage and terrorist acts. Klymenko said a significant share of such cases was linked to Telegram, estimating it at around half, and stressed that the issue should be debated not only within the security services but across society. Both officials said they were not calling for a blanket ban, but for regulatory mechanisms aimed at reducing the number of terrorist offences and limiting the use of online resources for unlawful activity. In practical terms, this indicates that Ukraine’s response to the recent attacks may now develop along two tracks: heightened protection for law enforcement personnel and a broader effort to disrupt the digital channels used to organise and recruit for acts of terror.
