ODESSA, March 29. /TASS/. An explosion that occurred near the building of a volunteer organization in the center of Odessa in southeast Ukraine on Friday evening is qualified as a terrorist attack, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.
"Unidentified persons activated an explosive device that had been put on a window ledge of a one-storey building in Staroportofrankovskaya Street where the volunteer center is located," the ministry said, adding the blast was qualified as a terrorist attack in accordance with part 1 of article 258 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code.
The blast damaged the organization’s non-residential premises and also smashed windows in a building across the street. No one was hurt in the explosion, the Interior Ministry said.
Odessa has been rocked by blasts in the past few weeks.
A blast in a residential building in Geraniyeva Street on March 22 smashed windows in the building’s offices on the first and second floors, setting off a fire. No one was hurt in the incident. The bomb went off at the entrance door on the first floor where offices are located.
A series of explosions occurred in Odessa in December 2014 and in January-February 2015. The blasts took place near buildings hosting organizations linked to rendering assistance to participants of Kiev’s military operation in Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk regions).
On March 5, an explosion rocked the street near the office of the Odessa branch of the Right Sector radical organization recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation. Law enforcement agencies treated all incidents as terrorist acts.
The last such case took place overnight to March 12 near a business center hosting a regional office of the Samopomoshch party.