A car bombing in Moscow on Friday critically injured Sergei Zavorotnyi, a former adviser to Ukraine’s former prime minister Mykola Azarov, a day after a similar attack killed a military serviceman in St Petersburg, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee.
The Moscow explosion struck a car driven by Zavorotnyi, 72, who was hospitalised with injuries, the Investigative Committee said. It did not identify possible suspects pending a criminal inquiry. Russia’s REN TV reported that he lost his left arm, suffered multiple other injuries and was in a coma; Reuters, citing REN TV and the 112 Telegram channel, reported he had lost his left arm and was being treated for a concussion and rib fractures. Those accounts of his condition come from Russian media, not from officials.
Zavorotnyi worked as a journalist for the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda before becoming an adviser to Azarov, Ukraine’s prime minister from 2010 to 2014 under the Moscow-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych was forced from office by the Maidan protests and fled to Russia in February 2014; Azarov also lives in Russia. Zavorotnyi wrote a book about Yanukovych’s ouster and ran an online outlet critical of the Ukrainian authorities.
Azarov told Russian state television he was “shocked” by the attack and said he believed his former adviser was targeted because of his criticism of the Ukrainian government. He told Russia’s TASS state news agency that he had no information about the bombing beyond the fact that Zavorotnyi had survived.
Blame, and an earlier attack
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Moscow, Yulia Shapovalova, said the device appeared to have been planted under the car and detonated remotely as Zavorotnyi drove on Friday, and that investigators had opened a criminal case.
In St Petersburg a day earlier, a military serviceman was killed by a bomb in his vehicle, the Investigative Committee said. It did not name the victim or say who might be behind the attack. The Fontanka news outlet said the victim was a colonel; The Moscow Times, citing the local broadcaster 78.ru, reported he was a colonel in the Russian Aerospace Forces’ 6th Guards Air and Air Defense Forces Army, and that his name was not released. Other Russian online media described a senior air-force officer.
Shapovalova said preliminary reports indicated the victim was a military serviceman rather than an air-force colonel — a discrepancy that remains unresolved. Reuters reported the serviceman was not immediately identified. In both attacks, Shapovalova said, the device was triggered remotely and planted under the car.
Moscow has blamed Kyiv for a series of bombings and shootings targeting people linked to the war in Ukraine. That attribution comes from the Russian side and is not an independent finding. Ukrainian authorities have not commented on either bombing, and Kyiv has not claimed responsibility. Russia’s Investigative Committee has not named Ukraine as a suspect in Friday’s case pending its inquiry.
What to watch
Whether investigators identify a suspect in the Moscow bombing, and whether the St Petersburg victim is officially named, will shape how the two attacks are reported. Both follow a pattern of attacks on figures associated with the war, and both sit against the wider backdrop of the conflict’s diplomacy and the cross-border strikes each side reports. Until a suspect or a claim of responsibility emerges, the question of who carried out either bombing remains open.
Sources: Al Jazeera; Reuters; AP; The Moscow Times; Ukrainska Pravda.
Image: State Chancellery of Latvia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. File photo: Mykola Azarov, prime minister of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014, pictured in February 2012.