A car bombing on Friday in Moscow injured an adviser to Ukraine’s former prime minister in the second such attack in as many days and part of a series linked to the conflict with Russia’s neighbor.
The explosion struck a car driven by Sergei Zavorotnyi, who previously worked as an adviser to former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee.
Zavorotnyi was hospitalised with injuries, the committee added.
It didn’t identify possible suspects pending a criminal inquiry.
Azarov served as prime minister under Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych, who was forced from office by protesters and fled to Russia in February 2014. Azarov also lives in Russia.
On Thursday, a military serviceman was killed in St. Petersburg by a bomb in his vehicle, according to the Investigative Committee.
It didn’t identify the victim or say who could be behind the bombing.
The Fontanka news outlet said the victim was a colonel and a bomb in his car went off as he was driving.
It claimed the bomb used for the attack had been flown over the border from Ukraine into Russia in a balloon and hidden before it was picked up and used in the attack.
The device was planted on instructions from Ukraine’s spy agency by a man who had gotten a job at a grocery store near the apartment building where the victim lived, Fontanka said. It claimed that the man fled Russia immediately after the attack.
Other Russian online media said the victim of the St. Petersburg bombing was a senior air force officer.
There have been a series of bombings and shootings in Russia that targeted people involved in the fighting in Ukraine.
Moscow has blamed Kyiv for the attacks.
Kyiv has claimed responsibility for some attacks inside Russia.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said in December 2024 that it had organised the killing of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who headed the Russian military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces.
Kirillov was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service levelled criminal charges against him.
