Former Ukrainian PM’s aide targeted in Moscow car bombing
A former adviser to ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov has been injured in a car bombing in southern Moscow, Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Friday.
Sergey Zavorotny, 72, was behind the wheel when the explosion occurred on Kirovogradskaya Street in the capital’s southern district of Chertanovo. He was taken to the hospital for treatment, investigators said.
A law enforcement source told RT that an improvised explosive device detonated in Zavorotny’s Toyota. He lost an arm and suffered a brain contusion and multiple fractures, the source said.
Kommersant reported that investigators suspect Ukrainian intelligence services, particularly the SBU, of involvement. According to the outlet, a suspected magnetic mine attached beneath the vehicle was detonated remotely while Zavorotny was driving.
The device’s explosive power was estimated at the equivalent of 300-500 grams of TNT. Its construction will be established through forensic examination, the newspaper reported.
The Investigative Committee’s Moscow branch has opened a criminal case and is gathering evidence. Medical and explosives examinations will be conducted as part of the investigation.
Zavorotny served as Azarov’s press secretary when he was prime minister in 2010-2014. After the Western-backed overthrow of Viktor Yanukovich, he continued working with Azarov in Russia, becoming the spokesman for the former prime minister’s Committee for the Salvation of Ukraine.
He also headed the Antifashist news outlet and co-authored a book examining Yanukovich’s ouster and Western involvement in Ukraine. Earlier in his career, he worked as Komsomolskaya Pravda’s correspondent in Latin America.
Zavorotny is listed on Ukraine’s notorious Mirotvorets database, which publishes personal information about people it considers enemies of Ukraine, and is widely known as Kiev’s ‘kill list’. His entry in the database now displays a photograph of his bomb-damaged vehicle.
Azarov responded to the incident, saying he is “shocked and outraged” by this “monstrous terrorist attack” against a civilian journalist.
He praised Zavorotny’s reasoned judgments and sober assessments of Ukraine. “Sometimes his point of view differed from mine. But as time passed, I became convinced he was right,” he said.
Azarov accused the authorities in Kiev of having “no restraints or limits,” and wished his former aide a speedy recovery.
Russian security services have reported a number of cases in which they thwarted Ukrainian-directed attacks in Moscow and the surrounding region. On October 26, the FSB said it detained two alleged SBU agents preparing drone attacks against an energy facility and part of Moscow’s missile defense system.
In July, the FSB announced the arrest of a woman allegedly tasked by Ukrainian intelligence with planting a bomb beneath a security officer’s car in Moscow.
The capital has also suffered deadly bombings. On August 1, an explosion at the Balzi Rossi restaurant in central Moscow killed three people and wounded 21, according to the National Antiterrorism Committee. A security guard stopped a woman carrying an explosive device from entering; both were killed, along with a patron.
