Two Russian traffic police officers died this morning in Moscow when an explosive device exploded when they approached a suspicious person about 300 meters from the scene, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. The identity of that suspect, who is also deceased, has not been released.
The event occurred around 1:30 in the morning (11:30 p.m. on Tuesday in Spanish peninsular time) on Elétskaya Street, in the Orekhovo-Borísovo neighborhood in the south of the Russian capital. This road crosses Yasenevaya Street, very close to the place where the car of Commander Sarvarov, the third Russian general killed in the last year, exploded.
has reported that officers approached the suspect as he loitered near a patrol car parked in a parking lot. However, two Telegram channels close to the Russian security forces, Mash and 112, have told a slightly different version: their superior had ordered them to arrest him, but when they approached the man in their vehicle, he threw the explosive device at them through the window.
Both these channels and the Shot media add that a neighbor had seen minutes before an individual with a hood and a surgical mask looking inside the parked vehicles. According to another channel linked to the police, Baza, security forces found a second unexploded device in the area.
The two police officers, aged 24 and 25, were seriously injured and died in the hospital to which they were transferred. The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case for two crimes, attempted murder of security agents and trafficking in explosives.
According to sources from the Mash and 112 channels, the suspect could have been the victim of blackmail by professional scammers. They would have accessed his account in the Russian electronic administration, Gosuslugi, and would have persuaded him to participate in “a sabotage operation.” However, there is no official confirmation of this version or information about the identity of the alleged attacker.
Jihadist attacks
The last attack on police in Moscow took place in August, when an Islamic State member, Sheravgan Kundzhumov, threw incendiary bottles into several vehicles and attempted to attack officers with a knife. Previously, in 2019 and 2021, Ibragim Eldzharkiev, director of the Center for Combating Extremism for Ingushetia, and Alexei Novoseltsev, former deputy director of the General Directorate of Economic Security, were murdered.
This Wednesday’s event took place two days after the attack that took the life of General Fanil Sarvarov in the same neighborhood. The investigation continues without having yet established an official version, although one of the main avenues of the investigation is
