An explosion that hit luxury apartments in Moscow was a “carefully planned assassination attempt” targeting a senior military commander, Russian state media has claimed.
A bomb is reported to have gone off on the first floor of the Scarlet Sails residential complex in northwest Moscow, killing one person and injuring four others.
Armen Sargsyan, the founder of the of the Armenian volunteer battalion Arbat, which is fighting with the Russian army in Ukraine, was seriously wounded in the attack, according to reports.
He has been rushed to hospital, where he is receiving emergency care.
The bomb exploded when Sargsyan was standing in the entrance of the building with his bodyguards.
The power of the explosion was equivalent to 300 grammes of TNT, and caused extensive damage, according to investigators.
Investigators have opened a criminal case and are trying to establish who ordered the assassination attempt.
Ukraine claims that Sargsyan was repsonsible for murdering a number of people in Kyiv during the Maidan Revolution of 2014.
He has been hiding in the occupied territories of Ukraine and collaborating with the Russian security forces.
Sargsyan founded the armed group Arbat, recruiting criminals from occupied Donetsk to its ranks, which has fought against Ukraine’s army.
Ukraine’s intelligence services also accuse Sargsyan of supplying the Russians with fuel, thermal imagers and construction materials through companies under his control.
This latest alleged assassination attempt follows the killing of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov in Moscow in December by Ukraine’s intelligence services.
Kirillov headed Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection forces and had been accused of authorising and overseeing the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine.
