Carefully planned Moscow bomb blast kills East Ukrainian paramilitary leader

Moscow — A pro-Russian paramilitary leader from eastern Ukraine, Armen Sarkisyan, was killed on Monday when a bomb tore through parts of a luxury apartment block in Moscow, state news agency Tass and other Russian media reported.

Tass called the bombing a well-planned assassination.

The bomb detonated just as Sarkisyan, accompanied by his bodyguards, entered the basement of the “Scarlet Sails” complex on the banks of the Moskva River, just 12km from the Kremlin, according to Russian media.

One bodyguard was killed and three more injured, Kommersant newspaper said.

“The assassination attempt on Sarkisyan was carefully planned and was ordered. Investigators are currently identifying those who ordered the crime,” Tass quoted a law enforcement official as saying.

Baza, a Telegram channel with contacts in Russia’s security services, published video showing major damage to the building’s lobby.

Reuters journalists on the scene saw shattered windows and a helicopter apparently evacuating the injured, amid a major police presence.

In December, Ukraine’s SBU security service described Sarkisyan as a crime boss in the Donetsk region, much of which has been controlled by Moscow since 2014, and said that he was officially suspected of participating in and aiding “illegal armed groups”.

It said he had formed a pro-Russian military unit made up of local convict fighters and had organised purchases of supplies for front-line units.

Mediazona, an independent Russian outlet that covers law enforcement, reported that Armenian-born Sarkisyan had been a longtime organised crime figure in the Donetsk region city of Horlivka.

In 2022, it said, he founded a pro-Russian paramilitary unit composed mostly of his fellow ethnic Armenians to fight against Kyiv’s forces.

In December, Ukraine took credit for the killing of Russian Gen Igor Kirillov in a bomb blast outside a Moscow apartment building.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on Monday.

Meanwhile, Ukraine struck energy facilities in southern Russia with dozens of drones launched on Monday, triggering fires at a major oil refinery and gas processing plant and disrupting flights from the Volga to the Caucasus Mountains, Russian and Ukrainian officials said.

Russia's defence ministry said that its air defence units intercepted and destroyed 70 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight, including 25 over the Volgograd region, 27 over the Rostov region and seven over the Astrakhan region.

"The air defence forces of the defence ministry repelled a massive attack by aircraft-type drones on the territory of the Volgograd region," Volgograd governor Andrei Bocharov said.

Falling drone debris sparked several fires at an oil refinery, he said, though he did not say which refinery was on fire.

Since Russia sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, Kyiv has tried to fight back against its much bigger neighbour by striking deep into Russia with drones and missiles, and even killing a senior military commander in Moscow.

Baza said a series of explosions were heard in the area around a refinery operated by Russia’s second-largest oil producer Lukoil in Volgograd. The 300,000 barrel-per-day refinery is the largest in southern Russia.

In 2023, it processed 13.508-million tonnes of oil, or 4.9% of the total refining volume at Russian refineries. 

Reuters