A police officer was killed and 25 people injured in Lviv, Ukraine, overnight in what officials are calling a terror attack, Ukrainian authorities reported Sunday. The explosions, which detonated in waste bins, occurred shortly after midnight as police responded to a reported break-in.
Viktoria Shpylka, a 23-year-old female police officer, was identified as the fatality. According to the National Police of Ukraine, Shpylka had only begun her service at the start of the full-scale invasion of the Kherson region. Eleven people were admitted to hospital, with six law enforcement officers among those in serious condition.
President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the detention of an individual suspected of carrying out the attack. The police later stated that the 33-year-old suspect allegedly acted on the “instruction” of an agent of Russia’s special services, and had both made and planted the explosive devices.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi identified the suspect as a Ukrainian woman. The incident follows a pattern of attacks targeting law enforcement in Russia and Ukraine in recent weeks. On February 24, 2026, a man detonated an explosive device beside a police patrol car in central Moscow, killing one officer and wounding two others. Authorities there as well initially reported the attacker fled, but later found him dead at the scene.
In December 2025, two police officers were killed in a blast in southern Moscow while attempting to stop a suspicious person near their vehicle, an incident occurring near the site of a previous attack targeting a Russian general. Earlier in February, a top Russian military intelligence officer was shot and wounded in Moscow, an attack that Russian authorities blamed on Kyiv.
The investigation into the Lviv attack is ongoing, with Ukrainian authorities identifying other potential individuals involved. The regional prosecutor’s office has initiated a probe into the “act of terrorism that led to grave consequences.”
