Russian Telegram channels reported on Friday that a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado belonging to Vasily Prozorov, a former Lt. Col. from Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), was blown up as he started the vehicle in a parking lot on Moscow’s Korovinskoye Highway.
Dramatic video showed the moment the SUV exploded, leaving the defector with wounds to his arm and leg requiring him to be hospitalized.
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Prozorov, 48, was an officer of the SBU until 2018, when he defected to Russia. In a 2019 press conference in Moscow, he said that he had been collaborating with Russia “for ideological reasons,” passing information relating to Ukraine’s anti-terrorist operations in the Donbas following the 2014 partial annexation by Moscow.
During the same event Prozorov accused the SBU of building a “secret prison” near Mariupol and claiming that Ukraine had been responsible for the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on July 17, 2014. Igor Girkin, a former Russian intelligence operative and two other accomplices were found guilty of the attack on the aircraft by a Dutch court in 2022.
The SBU has said that Prozorov was a traitor and a liar who had been sacked “for professional misconduct,” including “systematic alcohol consumption at the workplace” and for discrediting his office.
Prozorov's car was left badly damaged following the explosion, with a side door detached from the body of the car, and parts of the vehicle scattered around damaging nearby vehicles.
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Initial comments made on social media and on site suggested the blast may have been caused by a gas leak. Once Prozorov had been identified as the victim, the Russian Investigative Committee launched a criminal case investigating the case as an assassination attempt, according to Telegram channel 112.
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