KIEV, Aug. 7 - The leader of a self-proclaimed separatist republic in eastern Ukraine, Igor Plotnitskiy, has been injured in a bomb attack, BBC reported, citing rebel officials.

A blast hit a car carrying Plotnitskiy, head of the Luhansk People's Republic, in the city of Luhansk. Two others were also hurt.

Plotnitsky, 52, is said to be stable after hospital treatment.

The rebels said Ukrainian "saboteurs" might be behind the attack - a claim denied by the Ukrainian authorities.
Describing Saturday's attack as a "terrorist" act, the pro-Russian rebels pledged to punish the perpetrators.

They say an explosive device was planted near a set of traffic lights and detonated when Plotnitskiy's car was passing at about 08:00 local time (11:00 GMT).

The extent of Plotnitsky’s injuries was not clear, but separatist-run media released what they said was a recording made by him as he recovered in hospital, during which he accused Ukraine and its US backers of being behind the attack.

“This will be reported to the president of the Russian Federation and the FSB,” he said, referring to the security service formerly run by Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“Those who want remove the legal authorities in LNR [the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic] are provocateurs. It’s not worth listening to them, because they want to destabilize and reduce to nothing everything that we have achieved.”

For more than two years, separatists with Russian military, financial and diplomatic support have run parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in eastern Ukraine, amid a conflict that has killed 10,000 people and displaced two million.

Kiev denied involvement in the attack on Plotnitskiy, who has many local enemies following the assassination last year of several Cossack warlords in Luhansk region who had accused him of corruption and double-dealing.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that following the assassination attempt, the separatists’ armed units in Luhansk were “conducting counter-sabotage measures and had gone to the highest level of combat readiness.”

More than 9,500 people - including many civilians - have since been killed in the two regions.

A ceasefire was agreed in February 2015 but both sides accuse each other of almost daily shelling across the separation line.

The clashes in the east began shortly after Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula.

Kiev and the West accuse Moscow of arming the rebels and sending Russian regular troops to fight in eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin denies deploying troops but admits that Russian volunteers have been fighting alongside the rebels. (bbc/ez)