Three people were killed by a bomb in Moscow on Wednesday after two police officers approached a man behaving suspiciously. It was near the location where a senior Russian general was killed by a car bomb two days earlier, investigators said.
Russia’s State Investigative Committee said the officers were killed when an explosive device detonated as they approached the man. A third person also died, though officials did not identify who that was. Criminal cases were opened into the killing of law enforcement officers and the illegal handling of explosives.
The blast occurred close to the site where Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Russian General Staff’s army operational training directorate, was killed on Monday. Russian authorities said they suspected Ukrainian intelligence was behind that attack. Ukraine has made no official comment.
Residents described a powerful explosion. One local man told Reuters television it sounded similar to the car bomb earlier in the week. Another resident said she was jolted awake in the early hours as the building appeared to shake.
Unofficial Russian Telegram channels reported that the bomber was among those killed and that he set off the device when confronted by police.
Myrotvorets, an unofficial Ukrainian website that lists people it describes as war criminals or traitors, updated its entry on Sarvarov to say the 56-year-old general had been «liquidated.»
Kursiv also reports that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a draft peace plan discussed by Ukrainian and US negotiators could involve Kyiv withdrawing troops from parts of eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia.
