MOSCOW -- A car bombing on Friday in Moscow critically 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 neighbour. 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 hospitalized 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, who also lives in Russia, told state TV that he was “shocked” by the attack that left his former adviser critically injured. He said he believes Zavorotnyi was targeted because of his criticism of of Ukrainian authorities. Russia’s REN TV channel said he lost his left arm, suffered multiple other injuries and was in a coma after the explosion. Zavorotnyi. 72, had worked as a journalist for Russia’s daily Komsomolskaya Pravda before becoming Azarov’s adviser. He wroted a book about Yanukovych’s ouster and ran an online outlet critical of Ukrainian authorities. The U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence in a report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election identified Zavorotnyi as an officer with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. 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. Ukrainian authorities haven’t commented on either bombing. 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 organized 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 leveled criminal charges against him. In August of this year, a bomb ripped through an upscale restaurant in central Moscow, killing five people, including the bomber, and injuring about 20 others in what the mayor called a “brutal terrorist act.” Russian media outlets claimed the bombing targeted Col.-Gen. Alexander Chaiko, who led the troops that made a botched attempt to storm the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in 2022 and later was appointed the air force chief. Later that month, the director of a Russian drone factory was badly injured and his driver was killed by a bomb planted in their car just outside Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains. Also in August, a military servicema n was killed and his wife was injured by a car bomb on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. In September, a military serviceman was shot and injured in the city of Engels in Russia’s Saratov region, which is home to a major base for long-range bombers.
