A former aide to Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov was hospitalized in serious condition Friday after an explosion beneath his SUV in southern Moscow, the Kommersant newspaper reported.
Russia’s Investigative Committee confirmed that Sergei Zavorotny, a 72-year-old journalist, was driving the vehicle when the blast occurred and was taken to a Moscow hospital. Kommersant said he was driving on Kirovogradskaya Ulitsa in the Chertanovo district and that passersby gave him first aid.
Investigators opened an attempted murder case. Kommersant said preliminary findings indicated that a magnetic bomb had been attached beneath the SUV and reported that investigators were looking into possible involvement by Ukrainian intelligence services.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on Friday.
Born in the Far East city of Khabarovsk, Zavorotny spent much of his career in Ukraine and worked for Azarov during Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency.
He reportedly moved to Russia after the 2014 Maidan Revolution that toppled Yanukovych and went on to voice pro-Kremlin and anti-Western views.
U.S. intelligence previously identified Zavorotny as an officer in Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, according to a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In 2018, Zavorotny presented a book he co-wrote about Yanukovych’s downfall at the Biblio-Globus bookstore in Moscow. The book’s title portrayed the events of 2014 as a surrender to the U.S. State Department.
The Moscow blast came a day after a car bomb killed a Russian serviceman in St. Petersburg. The local broadcaster 78.ru reported that the victim was a colonel in the Russian Aerospace Forces.
Another Russian military officer was killed in a car explosion in the same St. Petersburg neighborhood in August.
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