A car belonging to a commander of the Slobozhanschyna battalion Andriy Yanholenko was blown up in Kharkiv at noon on Friday.

"It happened in Saltivka (a housing estate in the north-eastern part of Kharkiv) near a 24-storey building. Andriy [Yanholenko] and his wife are in an emergency hospital," the commander of the Kharkiv battalion Serhiy Yanholenko, Andriy Yanholenko's brother, has said.

S. Yanholenko did not say how serious their condition is.

Meanwhile, the city council reported that two people had been injured when a Volkswagen Transporter vehicle in which they were travelling blew up and caught fire in Kharkiv.

The victims were taken to a local hospital, deputy city mayor Svitlana Horbunova-Ruban said.

There have been several deadly explosions in Kharkiv lately. One occurred in the afternoon on February 22 near a sports palace where people were about to start a demonstration on the occasion of the victory of the Revolution of Dignity; two people were killed on the spot and two others died later in hospital. Another explosion occurred in the early hours of February 9 at a business center; no one was injured. The third explosion occurred near the Moskovsky District Court on the evening of January 19, after a hearing of a case against pro-Ukrainian activist Mykhailo Sokolov; 14 people were injured, four of them were in a critical condition.