A Russian man suspected of being behind a car bombing that left two people wounded in Moscow on July 24 has been extradited from Turkey and has arrived in the Russian capital, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk said on July 26.
One of the two people wounded in the car explosion in a parking lot in northern Moscow was reported to be a senior military intelligence officer, although confusion still persists about the identity of both victims.
The bombing suspect, identified as Russian citizen Yevgeny Serebryakov, was detained by Turkish police in the Aegean Sea resort of Bodrum after arriving there on a flight on July 24, the same day the bombing occurred, according to a statement by Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.
Volk, in a post on Telegram, said the arrest and extradition of Serebryakov was possible through the cooperation of Russian and Turkish law enforcement agencies coordinated through Interpol channels.
"Today, Serebryakov was taken to Russia and handed over to investigators of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation," Volk said.
Neither the Investigative Committee nor the Interior Ministry have identified the two people wounded in the blast, saying only that a criminal investigation and a forensic investigation had been opened into the incident that occurred on Moscow's Sinyavinskaya Street.
But Russian media reports said Andrei Torgashov, 49, the deputy chief of a military satellite-communications radio center who had reportedly taken part in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and his wife were the two victims of the bombing.
However, a person purported to be Torgashov's wife, Maya, was quoted by the 360 Telegram channel as saying that neither she nor her husband was in the car when the explosion occurred, claiming other people were in the vehicle.
In an unverified video posted on the Telegram channel of the MSK1.ru news site on July 26, a young man in handcuffs who is described as Serebryakov says the Ukrainian secret services promised him "Ukrainian citizenship and $10,000-$20,000 to blow up an officer in Moscow."
The authenticity of the video could not be independently established.
An earlier report in the Moskovsky komsomolets newspaper had previously said that "the investigation leads include possible involvement of Ukrainian special services and their agents."
Several Russian military officials and pro-Kremlin public figures and bloggers have been targeted by bombing attacks since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Serebryakov, 29, was born in the city of Uryupinsk in the Volgograd region, according to Russian media reports.