A pro-Kiev oligarch offered a $10,000 (£6,000) bounty on Thursday for the capture of any Russian "saboteur" and promised another half-million hryvnia (£27,000) to the national guardsmen who successfully repelled an attack by pro-Russian militia last night, killing three.
Igor Kolomoisky, an energy tycoon who was appointed governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region in eastern Ukraine last month, also offered rewards for handing in weapons belonging to insurgents: $1,000 for each machine gun turned in to the authorities, $1,500 for every heavy machine gun and $2,000 for a grenade launcher.
The rewards for weapons and saboteurs, which were announced by Kolomoisky's deputy, Boris Filatov, were offered around eastern Ukraine on Thursday afternoon. A local man outside the anti-terrorist operation's staging point at the Kramatorsk airfield, which has been partially blocked off by angry residents, told the Guardian on Thursday that the airfield director had offered $10,000 for a captured Russian agent. He declined to provide his name.
This is not the first time Kolomoisky has put his own money toward the country's defence. Last month, the oligarch spent "several million dollars" buying car batteries for military vehicles. Ukraine's army has suffered years of neglect, with a reported 6,000 battle-ready troops at the moment.
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