Moscow blast ‘kills founder of unit fighting in eastern Ukraine’

Two people have died after an explosion rocked an upmarket block of flats in Moscow – including the founder of a battalion that battled Kyiv’s forces in eastern Ukraine, Russian authorities and news reports said.

One of the dead was identified as Armen Sarkisyan, founder of the volunteer battalion who also heads a boxing federation in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region.

Footage released by Russia’s Investigative Committee showed a building lobby in Moscow with shattered glass doors and a damaged ceiling.

Three other people were injured in the blast. Authorities did not say what caused the explosion, but the state news agency Tass cited an unidentified law enforcement source as saying a bomb was planted in the building.

The Investigative Committee said it opened a criminal inquiry on charges of murder by means injurious to the public, attempted murder of two or more people and arms trafficking.

Tass and the RIA Novosti news agency, both citing a law enforcement source, identified one of the dead as Sarkisyan. Both agencies said he died in the hospital.

Tass also reported that Sarkisyan’s bodyguard was killed by the blast.

Officials initially reported that the blast killed one and injured four, but later said one of them died in the hospital.

In December, Sarkisyan was charged in absentia by the Security Service of Ukraine with participation in illegal armed or paramilitary formations or assisting such formations in combat operations against its armed forces.

The agency, known as the SBU, has previously accused Sarkisyan of recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine, cooperating with Russian security forces, and creating an armed formation involved known as “ArBAT,” or “Armenian Battalion”.

The ArBAT group fought the Ukrainian army in the Toretsk area of the Donetsk region, as well as in Russia’s Kursk region, the SBU said.

Ukrainian forces launched an incursion in the Kursk region in August.