A car blast in Moscow on Friday wounded a former adviser to Ukraine's fugitive ex-prime minister Mykola Azarov, Russian officials said, as they launched a criminal probe into the explosion.
The apparent attack comes a day after a Russian colonel was killed in a car explosion in Saint Petersburg -- the latest in a string of killings of Russian military figures and pro-Kremlin supporters of Moscow's offensive.
Sergei Zavorotny was behind the wheel when the car exploded on Friday morning, leaving him wounded, Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Zavorotny "has been taken to one of the city's hospitals, where he is receiving medical treatment," it said.
AFP images from the site of the blast show the burned out and mangled chassis of a car purported to be that of Zavorotny, with Russian investigators inspecting the scene, sealed off with a red-and-white tape.
Zavorotny worked as an aide to Mykola Azarov, a pro-Russian former prime minister of Ukraine who resigned in 2014 amid Ukraine's pro-European Maidan revolution.
Azarov and then-President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in 2014 after their security forces killed dozens of protesters who had camped out in central Kyiv demanding pro-EU reforms.
In January 2022, weeks before Russia ordered troops into Ukraine, British intelligence sources said Azarov had maintained links with Russia's secret services.
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