Mayor of Ukraine’s Second-Largest City 'Fighting for His Life' After Assassination Attempt

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Kharkiv, Ukraine mayor Hennadiy Kernes was shot in an apparent assassination attempt on Monday morning local time.

Image: Sergei Chuzavkov/Associated Press

By Christopher Miller2014-04-28 14:36:49 UTC

Hennadiy Kernes, mayor of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, underwent emergency surgery after he was shot in the back in an apparent assassination attempt on Monday.

Tatiana Gruzinskaya, a Kharkiv city spokesperson, said doctors are “fighting for his life.”

Kernes, 54, was reportedly jogging or cycling along the Belgorod highway that runs through the city of 1.5 million with his bodyguards close behind around 11:30 a.m. local time when he was shot. Iryna Kushchenko, a spokeswoman for the Kharkiv government, told reporters it was most likely carried out by someone hidden in the surrounding woods where he was exercising who knew of his daily routine. Police discovered one shell casing at the scene.

An ambulance transported Kernes to the Surgery Institute in Kharkiv, where doctors pronounced his condition as “critical.”

“Several internal organs have been injured. There’s bleeding and shock. The bleeding has been stopped, and emergency doctors are treating him for shock,” Dr. Valeriy Boyko, who performed a two-hour “successful” surgery on the mayor, told reporters on Monday.

He said Kernes had suffered a “serious thoracoabdominal injury caused by damage to the diaphragm resulting in an aperature between the chest and abdomen.” Kernes was still anesthetized and in critical condition at the time of the doctors remarks Monday afternoon.

More specifically, Deputy Chairman of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration Yuriy Sapronov said Kernes had sustained injuries to his lung and liver.

“They shot him in the back from the forest. The injury is serious. His lung is pierced and his liver pierced all the way through,” he wrote on Facebook.

Asked whether the mayor’s life remains in danger, Dr. Boyko told reporters he could not answer the question. “God will decide,” the doctor said.

In a spontaneous press conference in Kharkiv following the incident, Kernes’ close friend and presidential candidate Mykhailo Dobkin said he believed the shot was aimed at the mayor’s heart.

“I can say this shot was aimed to kill, to the heart. And I can say that there is no death only due to a happy coincidence,” Dobkin said. “If you want my opinion, it was not a shot at Kernes it was a shot at Kharkiv.”

Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov Tuesday afternoon ordered the Interior Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine “to investigate immediately” the attempt on Kernes’ life.

Kernes was a longtime advocate and member of former President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions before dropping the ousted head of state and the party following the overthrow of the government in February. He then supported separatists in Kharkiv who seized the city hall building before coming out in support of a united Ukraine after it was recaptured by Ukrainian police. The flip-flop earned him the ire of activists who took part in the Euromaidan Revolution and led many to call him a political chameleon.

The mayor, who got his start as a businessman before entering politics, has also been long-rumored to have come up as a crime boss before taking office.

A prolific social media user, Kernes has never been shy about flaunting his lavish lifestyle in photographs for all to see, or responding to crude commenters.

In an exchange last year, Kernes wrote to one commenter on Instagram: “Listen, you evil (expletive) commentators, if you have that to say then just get together and (expletive) each other.”

The apparent assassination attempt came less than 24 hours after Kharkiv erupted in violence when pro-Ukraine soccer ultras clashed with pro-Russia demonstrators. Police said several people were injured in the skirmish. Footage of the scuffle shown on Ukrainian television and shared across social media showed several men from the pro-Russian group badly injured, with blood streaming from their heads.

Elsewhere in Ukraine’s east, the unrest that has engulfed the region continued.

Early Monday morning gunmen donning unmarked military fatigues seized the city administration building in Kostyantynivka, located between separatist-occupied Donetsk and Sloviansk, and raised the Donetsk Republic flag.

The group reportedly captured the city’s police station, as well, although Ukraine’s Interior Ministry denied it had been taken over.