A onetime spokesman for a pro-Russian former prime minister of Ukraine was wounded by a car bomb in Moscow on Friday, Russian media reported.
The Kommersant newspaper reported that Sergei Zavorotniy, once a top aide of Mykola Azarov, who served as Ukraine’s prime minister from 2010 to 2014, was hospitalized after a car exploded on a street in Chertanovo, a district of the Russian capital.
It was the second car bombing in Russia in successive days. Moscow has blamed Ukraine for previous assassinations of senior military officials and people linked to Russia’s war effort.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on Friday.
Ren TV and the 112 Telegram channel both reported that Zavorotniy had lost his left arm in the attack, and that he was in hospital with a concussion, rib fractures and other injuries.
The Baza Telegram channel published a photograph of a black four-door car with a smashed windshield, doors and front bumper on a city street.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles serious crimes, said it had opened an investigation into the incident.
Zavorotniy’s former boss Azarov fled to Russia in 2014, when Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych after he broke a promise to develop closer ties with the European Union.
Azarov told Russia’s TASS state news agency on Friday that he had no information about the car bomb, except that Zavorotniy had survived.
The explosion was the latest in a series of apparent assassination attempts inside Russia. On Thursday a member of the Russian military was killed in a car bomb in St Petersburg.
Ukrainian sources have claimed responsibility in some cases, while denying others. Kyiv has not commented on Thursday’s attack.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
