Ukrainian presidential aide Serhiy Shefir’s car shot at in Kyiv, say police

Bloomberg

A car carrying a close aide of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was shot at in Kyiv in an apparent attempt to murder an official at the heart of a crackdown on the country’s biggest businessmen.
While the adviser, 57-year-old Serhiy Shefir, escaped unscathed, his driver was wounded in Wednesday’s incident, according to a police statement.
Prosecutors said 18 bullets were fired at the vehicle.
The attack “can’t be qualified in any other way than an attempt to demonstratively murder a key member of the team,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, said by text message.
He linked the assassination bid to efforts to reduce the influence of tycoons on politics — an issue that’s dogged the country of 41 million since the collapse of communism three decades ago.
Zelenskiy, who’s currently in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, has
enjoyed in a boost in his flagging popularity of late as he seeks to curb corruption by reining in the country’s so-called oligarchs.
A law determining who should be included in that group is awaiting approval from parliament. Opponents say the government should instead do more to improve law enforcement and strengthen the judiciary.