Moscow car bomb wounds adviser to Ukraine's exiled ex-premier
Sergei Zavorotny, 72, was hurt in southern Moscow a day after a bomb in St Petersburg killed a Russian military officer.
A car bomb in southern Moscow wounded Sergei Zavorotny, a 72-year-old former adviser to Ukraine's exiled former prime minister Mykola Azarov, Russia's Investigative Committee said on Friday.
The committee said on Telegram that Zavorotny was injured while driving his car and was taken to a city hospital for treatment. It said investigators had opened a criminal case and would order medical and explosives examinations. Anadolu Agency reported that a team of investigators was sent to the scene.
Azarov told Russian television that Zavorotny's condition in hospital was "rather critical", the BBC reported. Russian media said he had been placed in an induced coma after losing his left arm, and had concussion and fractured ribs, according to the Guardian.
Zavorotny worked as a press aide and spokesman for Azarov in Kyiv until 2014, when the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was driven from power and Azarov left for Russia, where he tried without success to set up a government in exile. A 2020 report by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election identified Zavorotny as an officer of Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, involved in influence operations.
The explosion came a day after a car bomb in the Pushkinsky district of St Petersburg killed a Russian military officer. The dead man has not been officially named. The BBC reported that reputable sources described him as a senior figure in the 6th Guards Air and Air Defence Forces Army, while the Guardian, citing the local broadcaster 78.ru, said he was an air force colonel.
Fontanka, a St Petersburg news outlet, reported that the bomb was attached to the base of the car and detonated remotely, and had been planted by a 31-year-old suspect who tracked the officer's movements for months after taking a job at a nearby shop, the Guardian reported. The suspect left Russia for Moldova via Turkey on Thursday morning, according to the same account.
Ukraine has not commented on either blast, the Guardian reported. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian intelligence agencies have targeted Russian military officers and Russia-installed officials accused of involvement in war crimes. A lieutenant colonel in a Russian air force and air defence unit was killed in a car bombing in the same St Petersburg neighbourhood in late August, the Guardian reported.
Overnight into Friday, the two countries exchanged attacks. Ukrainian authorities said a hospital was hit by Russian bombardment and that three people, including a 17-year-old boy, were killed in attacks across Odesa and Zaporizhzhia. Russia said a Ukrainian strike on an industrial facility in the Samara region killed four people, and that drone strikes on an industrial zone in the Volgograd region killed another four. A further person died in the Bryansk border region, the BBC reported.
How the reports differ
Azarov's description of Zavorotny's condition as "rather critical" came from an interview with Russian television carried by the BBC, while the Guardian quoted Russian media saying he was in an induced coma and had lost his left arm. The BBC described the St Petersburg victim as a senior figure in the 6th Guards Air and Air Defence Forces Army; the Guardian, citing 78.ru, called him an air force colonel and added Fontanka's account of the suspected bomber fleeing to Moldova via Turkey. Anadolu led on the Investigative Committee opening a criminal case and sending investigators to the scene. Reuters framed the Moscow blast as the second car bomb in two days targeting an exiled Ukrainian political aide, and DW carried the attack in its headline above a roundup of other Ukraine war developments, including European participation in peace talks and Ukrainian complaints about Starshield satellite links.
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