On the morning of Aug. 27, a car exploded in the Slavyanka neighborhood of St. Petersburg’s Pushkinsky district, killing a Russian lieutenant colonel. His wife, who was also in the car, was hospitalized in intensive care, the local outlet Fontanka reports.
The explosion occurred around 10 a.m. near a Magnit foodstore on Kolpinskoye Highway. According to Fontanka’s preliminary information, a homemade explosive device went off inside the car. The outlet also writes that the blast “tore off” the couple’s legs. The official cause of the incident has not yet been established.
According to Shot, the vehicle that exploded was a Chinese Geely crossover. The blast occurred right after the driver started the engine, blowing out the rear window, tearing off the hood and rear bumper, and severely deforming the body of the car while scattering debris dozens of meters from the point of the blast.
The Telegram channel Ostorozhno, Novosti! reports, citing eyewitnesses, that nearby parked cars were also damaged in the attack. There is still no official information about the identity of the person killed or the circumstances of the explosion.
The Insider previously reported that following a series of assassination attempts targeting Russian military personnel and security officials, the Ministry of Internal Affairs ordered restrictions on courier parking near a number of its facilities. Specifically, a courier service working with the Zolotoe Yabloko cosmetics retailer received a demand not to park at 29 locations in Moscow and the Moscow Region. Most of the marked zones, The Insider established, are around government buildings and infrastructure including police stations, specialized traffic police battalions, vehicle depots, and warehouses.
The restrictions also separately listed three addresses that were not on the map: the central office of the Investigative Committee, a business center in Khimki that was named in a U.S. Justice Department indictment as the location of GRU military unit 74455, and a Defense Ministry residential complex for service members.
While the reason for the restrictions was not directly stated in the mailing, the measures were introduced following a series of assassination attempts targeting Russian military personnel and security officials in which explosive devices were hidden in objects outwardly associated with courier delivery — such as boxes, kick scooters, and electric scooters.
