Putin Hit With New Crisis on Kremlin’s Doorstep
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles serious crimes, has opened an investigation into the incident.
Sputnik/Sergei Bulkin/Pool via Reuters
Russia has been rocked by a second car bomb attack in as many days, targeting high-profile individuals.
Sergei Zavorotniy, who was once a spokesperson for former pro-Russian Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, was injured in an explosion on Friday in Moscow, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.
Azarov has been living in Russia since fleeing Ukraine amid anti-government protests in 2014, during which pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was removed from power. Azarov told Russia’s state news agency TASS that he had no information about the car bomb in the Russian capital beyond confirming that Zavorotniy had survived.
Police officers work at the site of a car explosion that wounded Sergei Zavorotniy, a former spokesman for the pro-Russian former prime minister of Ukraine, Mykola Azarov (2010-2014), in Moscow, Nov. 13, 2026.
Yulia Morozova/REUTERS
On Thursday, a car bomb attack also killed a senior Russian military colonel in St. Petersburg.
The identity of the Russian military official has not been confirmed, although Ukrainian monitoring channel Supernova suggested the victim could be Col. Andrei Khodykin, Col. Dmitry Lobodin, or Col. Viktor Pozdnyakov, all of whom served in the 6th Army.
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Russian news outlet Fontanka reported that a 31-year-old male suspect planted the bomb on the underside of the colonel’s car after surveilling him for around a month. The suspect has since fled Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military has been hit by a string of killings of high-ranking officers this year, which the Kremlin has blamed on Ukraine.
Vladimir Tkachuk, the head of defense contractor Uraldronzavod, was also killed in a car bomb attack, in August.
Gavriil Grigorov/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
In August, a Russian serviceman identified as Maj. Sergei Sechkov was killed in another bomb blast in St. Petersburg, which also injured his wife.
The spate of assassinations of Russian military officers is said to have alarmed Sechkov. He reportedly told his superiors that he feared he could be targeted next and regularly checked his vehicle before driving.
Sechkov had been accused of committing war crimes during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilians with missile and bombing attacks.
Damir Davydov, a general in the supply department of the Russian military’s main missile and artillery directorate, was also killed in a car bomb attack just outside Moscow in June.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has now dragged on for more than four and a half years.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Russia’s monthly losses in the conflict are almost equal to the total number of U.S. troops killed in Vietnam.
“The U.S. in 14 years, in Vietnam, lost 56,000. Here in one month, Russia, dead or seriously wounded, 40,000,” Rutte said at the Atlantic Future Forum on Wednesday.
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