At Least Two Killed In Blast At Peace March In Ukraine's Kharkiv

At Least Two Killed In Blast At Peace March In Ukraine

KIEV, Feb 22 (Reuters) - At least two people were killed and 10 wounded on Sunday when an explosive device was thrown from a car into a crowd attending a peace rally in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said.

An aide to Ukraine's security and defense council said an unspecified number of suspects were arrested over Sunday's blast. The Interior Ministry called the blast a "terrorist act."

Television footage showed emergency workers carrying the body of a wounded or dead victim into the back of an ambulance. Police said two people were killed and 15 wounded. A regional prosecutor initially said three were killed but later revised the figure to two.

Sunday's march in Kharkiv was one of a series of events across Ukraine marking the deaths of 100 protesters a year ago in an uprising that toppled a pro-Moscow president. More than 5,500 people have since been killed in war between government troops and Russian-backed separatists in the east.

The explosion was the latest in a spate of blasts targeting large Ukrainian cities. Six people were wounded in a similar attack in Kharkiv in late January in what police described as a grenade attack on a group of Ukrainian nationalists.

Kharkiv, the largest city in Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking east, has been the scene of violent protests by separatists over the past year but is now firmly under government control and most residents remain loyal to Kiev.

A city of 1.4 million, it is more than 220 km (140 miles) from the separatist conflict zone further east where fighting has continued despite a ceasefire deal. (Reporting by Natalia Zinets; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Peter Graff)

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