UKRAINE….

With less than a month before presidential elections, a top contender in the race has been injured in what appears to have been an assassination attempt. Natalya Vitrenko, head of the radical leftist Progressive Socialist Party, was wounded Sunday when assailants tossed two grenades at her and her aides as they were getting in their cars following a campaign rally in Inguletsk, a township twelve miles outside the southeastern industrial city of Kryvyi Rih. Vitrenko, who is running on a platform stressing the need to return to Soviet-style socialism, was reported to be in satisfactory condition after the attack, which put eighteen people in the hospital. Two of the victims were in critical condition, another two in serious condition.

Ukrainian Interior Ministry officials said they had arrested two suspects, who were residents of the southern Russian region of Rostov, and that a rival candidate’s campaign organizer was believed to have been behind the attack.

Ukraine’s presidential vote is set for October 31.