Updated throughout.
Law enforcement authorities in Turkey have arrested a Russian man suspected of detonating a car bomb in Moscow on Wednesday morning, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said, as Russian media reported that among the victims in the attack was a senior defense ministry official.
“The terrorist who organized a bomb attack in Russia was caught in Bodrum,” Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
According to Yerlikaya, who published a video of the arrest, the suspected bomber is named Evgeny Serebriakov, who was said to have arrived from Moscow to Bodrum Airport at 9:40 a.m. local time.
“A letter received from the Russian Interpol unit was matched,” the Turkish official added.
Russian Interior Ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk said earlier Wednesday that two people were injured in an explosion at a parking lot on the north side of Moscow. According to her, the blast was caused by an explosive device placed under a vehicle.
“The injured were taken by ambulance to a medical facility,” Volk said in a statement. “Police officers are carrying out a series of operational search measures aimed at establishing all the circumstances of the incident, as well as detaining persons involved in the carrying out the crime.”
A video shared by news channels on Telegram showed an explosion ripping through an SUV shortly after a man got into the vehicle.
Russian media outlets, citing anonymous law enforcement sources, reported that the two people injured in Wednesday’s explosion were GRU military intelligence officer Andrei Torgashev and his wife. According to those sources, Torgashev was hospitalized and in critical condition after both of his legs were blown off in the blast.
The Telegram news channel Astra reported that Torgashev serves as deputy chief of a Moscow region-based unit that is part of the Russian military’s satellite communications center.
Moscow region broadcaster 360.ru later reported that it had spoken with Torgashev’s wife, who denied her husband was injured in the attack and said someone else was inside the vehicle when the bomb went off. Likewise, the Kremlin-funded RT network claimed Torgashev himself denied he was injured.
It was not immediately possible to verify either of those reports.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, announced that it had launched a criminal investigation into Wednesday’s explosion, which, according to reporting by Kommersant, was being treated as attempted murder. The newspaper said police may turn the case into a terrorist investigation.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told independent Russian media that Kyiv “had nothing to do with” the car explosion in Moscow earlier in the day.
“As far as I know, there was a malfunction with the gas equipment in the car,” Podolyak said.
Later on Wednesday, Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Alexander Bortnikov told reporters that the man suspected of carrying out the bomb attack had managed to flee to Turkey, where Russian authorities were seeking his extradition.
“We are working with the Turks, but we will see,” Bortnikov said in a video posted by the Telegram news channel Shot.
A number of car explosions have rocked Russia since the Kremlin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago.
The daughter of conservative Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin was killed in a bomb attack in the summer of 2022, with Moscow laying the blame on Ukraine. And in May 2023, prominent pro-Kremlin writer and Russian nationalist Zakhar Prilepin survived a car blast in the Nizhny Novgorod region.
… we have a small favor to ask. As you may have heard, The Moscow Times, an independent news source for over 30 years, has been unjustly branded as a "foreign agent" by the Russian government. This blatant attempt to silence our voice is a direct assault on the integrity of journalism and the values we hold dear.
We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. Our commitment to providing accurate and unbiased reporting on Russia remains unshaken. But we need your help to continue our critical mission.
Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and you can be confident that you're making a significant impact every month by supporting open, independent journalism. Thank you.
Remind me later.
