Wife of Chechen who tried to kill Putin shot dead

Kiev: A Chechen volunteer soldier who was accused of plotting to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin was wounded and his wife killed on Monday when their car was strafed by gunfire near Kiev.

The apparent assassination was the latest involving high-profile figures in Ukraine who bitterly opposed Russia. It also threatened to further damage relations between two neighbours, which already treat each other as direct foes. 

Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said Amina Okuyeva died and her husband Adam Osmayev was injured when a hail of bullets while crossing a railroad track hit their car.

“Adam Osmayev was wounded, but he will live,” Mr Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook. “I just spoke to him by phone.”

Interior ministry spokesman Yaroslav Trakalo confirmed Ms Okuyeva’s death to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. He later added that investigators planned to open a “premeditated murder” inquiry but not a terror probe.

Mr Osmayev was accused by Moscow authorities of plotting to kill Mr Putin just weeks before the Russian leader’s election to a third term in 2012. He was held for two and a half years in a Ukrainian prison but never extradited to Russia.

A second suspect in that case was sentenced in 2013 to 10 years in prison after being handed over to the Russian authorities.

Mr Osmayev had already survived an assassination attempt in Kiev on June 1. The assailant was shot dead by Okuyeva on that occasion. The June bid to kill Mr Osmayev was staged by a man who initially presented himself as a journalist with a French newspaper. 

The Ukrainian interior ministry later identified the assailant as a Russian citizen. The locally renowned husband-and-wife team fought as volunteers alongside Ukrainian forces battling Russian-backed insurgents in the east of the war-scarred state.