Russian police were kept busy over the weekend between a car bombing in Siberia and a high-speed chase in Moscow, while a search remains under way in northeast Ukraine for a man suspected of killing three armed guards with an assault rifle before taking off with a bag of cash.
Car Bombing
A businessman and his female companion in the Siberian city of Mezhdurechensk were severely wounded on Friday when a bomb exploded in the man's minivan as he attempted to opened its door.
Fifty-one-year-old Sergei Shishkarev, who runs a local sporting goods store, lost an arm and both feet in the explosion, which authorities are treating as an attempted murder, perhaps related to a business dispute.
Both Shishkarev and his companion are currently undergoing treatment in a hospital. Both are listed as in serious condition. Another woman and two children who had been nearby at the time suffered minor injuries.
In January, Shishkarev was accused of having severely beaten a man during a fight, but the charge was dropped when he agreed to pay the man "for the damage," local newspaper Gazeta Kemerova reported.
Car Chase
Also on Friday, around 1 a.m., Moscow police stopped a speeding car by shooting at its tires and then barricading it with another vehicle, the Interfax news agency reported.
The car, a red Alfa Romeo from the mid-1990s, refused to pull over as it recklessly approached the southwest thoroughfare Leninsky Prospekt so a police officer used his service weapon, a 9mm Makarov pistol, to fire shots at its tires.
The car finally stopped when authorities used another vehicle, an unidentified "service vehicle," to form a blockade across that side of Leninsky Prospekt. Police arrested the driver, a 20-year-old Muscovite.
The police department's press service said that a suspicious "plant substance" was found in the car and has been sent to a lab for analysis.
Assault Rifle
Meanwhile, police in the Kiev-controlled Ukrainian city of Kharkiv are offering a million-hryvna ($90,000) reward for the capture of a man suspected of using an assault rifle resembling an AK-47 to fatally shoot a group of armored car guards before nonchalantly walking over to his own vehicle and driving away.
A video uploaded to YouTube by the Ukrainian authorities on Thursday shows the alleged robber in broad daylight, around 7 p.m., walking away from the scene of the crime, carrying a bag of cash in one hand and an assault rifle in the other.
See also:
Anti-Corruption Agents Plead Guilty in Organized Crime Case
Contact the author at p.spinella@imedia.ru
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