Ukrainian politician’s three-year-old son killed in assassination attempt

Oleksandr died in an ambulance on way to hospital

Investigators inspect Vyacheslav Sobolev's car in Kiev, Ukraine (Reuters)

The three-year-old son of a Ukranian politician has been shot dead during an assassination attempt on his father.

Vyacheslav Sobolev, a businessman and member of the Kiev regional council, was at the wheel of his Range Rover when gunmen opened fire in the country’s capital, Kiev, on Sunday.

Mr Sabolev and his wife were unharmed but his son Oleksandr was hit by a bullet and died in an ambulance on the way to hospital, the Kyiv Post newspaper reported.

The attackers then fled the scene in a Lexus.

Police have arrested two suspects, aged 18 and 19.

One of the attackers fired at the Range Rover from the window of a nearby house, hitting Oleksandr as he sat in the back seat, the police said.

The motive behind the assassination attempt has not been revealed.

Police were reportedly looking into several possible motives, including personal, business and political.

Mr Sobolev is a businessman from Donetsk, a flashpoint of pro-Russian insurgency in Ukraine. In 2010-2011 he was an executive at Ukraine’s state energy company Naftogaz.

There have been several murders of well-known figures on the streets of Kiev since Russia annexed Crimea and a pro-Moscow rebellion flared up in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Pavel Sheremet, a Belarussian journalist known for his criticism of his home country’s leadership and his friendship with the slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, was killed in a car bomb in Kiev in 2016.

Additional reporting by Reuters