Ukrainian media identified Tuesday's casualty as Colonel Maxim Shapoval, the chief of the Ukrainian military intelligence's special forces.

The blast coincided with a Ukrainian central bank warning that some Ukrainian banks had been hit by a cyber attack.

Photos issued by Kyiv police showed Shapoval's mangled car in the middle of the street.

Police said the explosion occurred early morning while the car was moving. A passerby was hospitalized with injuries.

Daylight killings

In July last year, prominent investigate journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed in central Kyiv while driving to front a radio talk show.

Last March, Russian opposition politician Denis Voronenkovwas shot dead outside a hotel in central Kyiv.

Sheremet had quit Russian broadcasting in 2014 in protest at the Kremlin's stance on Ukraine's pro-Europe course and annexation of Crimea.

Voronenkov had recently relocated to Ukraine after being critical the Kremlin's seizure of Crimea while denying Russian fraud charges over real estate dealings.

Moscow trial delayed 

Sheremet had been a friend of Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition leader and former Russian deputy prime minister who was shot dead in February 2015 on a bridge near the Kremlin.

The Moscow trial of Nemtsov's alleged killers, including a soldier from Chechnya, was delayed further on Tuesday when the judge removed two jurors.

ipj/rc (dpa, Reuters, AP)