A former Ukrainian intelligence officer who defected to Russia before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was injured in a car bomb attack in northwestern Moscow on Friday afternoon, state media reported.
Vasily Prozorov was injured after an explosive device detonated under his Toyota Land Cruiser, the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing anonymous law enforcement sources and people who know the former SBU security service agent. The report did not specify what type of injuries he sustained, while one source was quoted as saying that Prozorv “felt fine.”
Video of the suspected attack shared by the Telegram news channel Shot, which is believed to have links to Russian law enforcement agencies, showed the moment of the explosion, occurring just seconds after Prozorov was said to have entered the vehicle.
The Telegram news channel Baza, which is also believed to have links to Russian security services, published a short video of what appears to be Prozorov sitting on the damaged SUV’s back bumper and showing no visible signs of injury.
The former Ukrainian intelligence officer entered the public light in 2019 when he disclosed at a press conference in Moscow that he had spied on Ukraine’s SBU for Russia after former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted during a wave of demonstrations in 2014.
The SBU said it had fired Prozorov in 2018 for drinking on the job.
According to unverified reporting by the Telegram news channel 112, Moscow-backed authorities in southern Ukraine’s partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region thwarted an assassination attempt against Prozorov in Berdyansk “around one year ago.”
The Moscow branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee announced that it had launched a criminal investigation into Friday’s explosion.
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