UKRAINIAN communists have condemned a grenade attack on the home of a provincial leader in the city of Mariupol.

The attack took place at 4am on Monday at the flat of Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) Primorsky regional committee first secretary Alexei Krivun.

A grenade fired from a launcher hit the window of Mr Krivun’s third-floor flat in the Primorsky district of the city, near the Donetsk Department of Internal Affairs building.

It was only by good fortune that no-one was injured or killed when the grenade hit a cupboard.

Following the attack, police pursuing the attackers found two abandoned grenade launchers.

Mariupol, on the Black Sea coast, lies in the part of Donetsk oblast controlled by the Western-backed Kiev coup regime that took power in January 2014.

It was briefly taken by Donetsk anti-fascist forces in May of last year before being recaptured and declared the temporary regional capital.

A KPU statement said: “The municipal committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine strongly protests against the act of terror against our comrade and his family.

“We believe that all this is the result of the campaign of violence unleashed in the city by the fascists calling themselves ‘democrats’ at the connivance of the authorities in order to disrupt the upcoming local elections.”

The KPU in Mariupol demanded the “immediate investigation of the incident, punishment of those responsible and a stop to the violence started by the ruling junta in Ukraine and its neonazi accomplices.”