Confusion Over Which Russian Spy Was Injured by Booby-Trapped Car Bomb

On the morning of Wednesday, July 24 a device exploded inside a Toyota Landcruiser in the parking lot near an apartment block on Sinyavinskaya Street in Moscow.

The target was identified as Andrey Torgashov, a 49-year-old GRU major, according to a post by Irina Volk, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, on her official Telegram channel.  Volk said the bomb went off as he and his wife Maya got into the vehicle.

Another Telegram channel, MK: Urgent News said Torgashov is the deputy head of military unit 33790, a satellite communications center located in the Moscow region.

Reports in both Russian mainstream and social media say the explosion was the equivalent of 0.5 kilograms (about a pound). Reports from the scene said that the military officer lost both legs while his wife suffered cuts to her face. Both were transferred to the Gorodskaya hospital where Torgashov was said to be in critical condition.

However, reports on Wednesday afternoon cast doubts on the earlier claims, as both Torgashov and his wife spoke to Russian media confirming that they were not involved and that it was another couple who were injured. Torgashov said he had “never owned a Land Cruiser” and did not even live in that area.

The Baza Telegram channel said the injured man was another military officer – a colonel of Russia’s General Staff who had the same name as the GRU officerbut worked in military unit 45807, which is also connected with Russian military intelligence.

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According to a police spokesman, investigators – including explosive experts - were at the scene and a suspect had been caught on CCTV cameras apparently attaching an IED underneath the car on Tuesday night. The investigation would now be on the basis that this was a terrorist attack – suggesting Ukrainian special services involvement.

Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, denied any involvement in the attack. He said, “As far as I understand, there was faulty equipment there. We, of course, have nothing to do with this.”

He said that Kyiv was closely monitoring the situation.

This is not the first booby trap bomb attack against those involved in intelligence activity. In April a former Ukrainian SBU Colonel, Vasily Prozorov, who defected to Russia in 2018 and is also believed to have worked in unit 45807, was injured when an explosive device blew up under his Toyota SUV in the courtyard of a house on Korovinskoe Highway in Moscow.

He survived and once Prozorov had been identified as the victim, the Russian Investigative Committee launched a counter-terrorist investigation for which three suspects in the attack were later detained, one of whom, Vladimir Golovchenko, was arrested in Kyrgyzstan where he was found to hold a residence permit for Ukraine.