MOSCOW (The Thursday Times) — A car bomb in Moscow on Friday injured Sergei Zavorotnyi, a former adviser to the ex-Ukrainian prime minister Mykola Azarov, a day after a bomb in a vehicle killed a military serviceman in St Petersburg, Russia’s Investigative Committee said.
The committee said Zavorotnyi, 72, was taken to hospital after the explosion struck the car he was driving, and that it had opened a criminal case. It did not name any suspects. Russian television reported that he had lost his left arm and was in a coma, which could not be independently confirmed.
Zavorotnyi, a former journalist, wrote a book about the 2014 ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych and ran an online outlet critical of the Ukrainian authorities. Azarov, who served as prime minister under Yanukovych and, like him, now lives in Russia, said he was “shocked” and believed his former aide had been targeted for criticising the government in Kyiv.
A serviceman killed in St Petersburg
On Thursday, a military serviceman was killed in St Petersburg when a bomb went off in his vehicle as he was driving, the Investigative Committee said. It did not identify him or say who was behind the attack. Russian media described him variously as a colonel and as a senior air force officer.
One Russian news site claimed that the explosive had been flown across the border from Ukraine by balloon and planted on the instructions of Ukraine’s intelligence service by a man who then fled Russia. There was no official confirmation of that account, and Ukrainian authorities did not comment on either attack.
A pattern of attacks
Moscow has blamed Kyiv for a series of bombings and shootings inside Russia that have targeted people involved in the war. Ukraine has claimed some of them: its SBU security service said it organised the killing of Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, who died when a bomb hidden in a scooter exploded outside his Moscow home in December 2024.
In August, a bomb in a central Moscow restaurant killed five people, including the bomber, and the director of a Russian drone factory was badly hurt when a bomb went off in his car near Yekaterinburg.
The bombings came as US envoys pursue talks on ending the war. President Vladimir Putin told them this week that foreign troops in Ukraine would be legitimate targets, and Ukraine says it struck a Russian warship in the Baltic on Thursday.
