Bomb blast kills pro-Kremlin paramilitary leader wanted in Ukraine, Russian media reports

A bomb blast tore through the lobby of a luxury Moscow apartment block killing a pro-Russian paramilitary leader from eastern Ukraine, Russian media reported Monday.

Armen Sargasyan, who has long been accused by Ukraine of aiding Russia’s war effort in the country’s eastern Donetsk region, died in hospital after he was critically injured, Russia’s Kommersant said. One of his security guards died and three more people were injured in the explosion, the newspaper reported, citing Moscow’s health department.

“The assassination attempt on Sarkisyan was carefully planned and was ordered. Investigators are currently identifying those who ordered the crime,” state news agency TASS quoted a law enforcement official as saying.

Major damage to front of the building, with shattered glass and debris strewn across the lobby, could be seen in a video posted to Telegram by the Investigative Committee of Moscow.

Without naming the victims, the committee said in a statement that two people died, one of them in medical facility. Three more were injured, it added.

Later, Ivan Prikhodko, the Russia-installed mayor of the town of Horlivka in eastern Ukraine where Sarkisyan grew up, said in a post on Telegram that “as a result of a terrorist attack committed in the Alyie Parusa residential complex, Armen Nagapetovich Sargasyan passed away.”

The bomb detonated as a man with bodyguards entered the lobby of the complex — the name of which translates to “Scarlet Sails” — which lies on the banks of the Moskva River just 7 miles from the Kremlin, according to several Russian media reports.

In 2021, an assassin killed 40-year-old organized crime boss Ali Heydarov in the complex’s gym.

Sargasyan was described by Kommersant as the founder of the “Arbat” unit, a special volunteer force that included veterans of the Wagner mercenary group. The unit is an abbreviated version of the term “Armenian battalion” after the country of Sargasyan’s birth, according to Russian news outlet RBC.

Ukrainian officials had yet to respond to NBC News’s request for comment about Sargasyan’s death, but in December, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) described him as a “crime boss” in the Donetsk region, much of which has been controlled by Moscow since 2014.

It said that he was suspected of participating in and aiding “illegal armed groups,” according to Reuters. The “Arbat” unit also included local convict fighters, Reuters reported.

In December, the SBU claimed responsibility for killing the head of Russia’s chemical, radiological and biological weapons unit, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who was killed by an explosive device planted in a scooter next to a Moscow apartment building.

Sargasyan’s assassination came the same day as dozens of drones launched by Ukraine hit energy facilities in southern Russia and sparked fires at a major oil refinery and gas processing plant.

Russia’s air defense units intercepted and destroyed 70 Ukrainian drones over the Volgograd region overnight, according to the country’s defense ministry.

The attacks temporarily disrupted flights from the Volga to the Caucasus Mountains, both Russian and Ukrainian officials said.

Among the targets was southern Russia’s largest oil producer, Lukoil, which produces 300,000 barrels of oil every day, according to Baza, a Russian Telegram news channel with close ties to the country’s security services.

Russia said the attacks on its energy, transport, and infrastructure — integral to Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine — had amounted to terrorism, according to Reuters.

In a post on Telegram, Ukraine’s air force said that on the night of Feb. 3, it also shot down 38 Russian drones, with a total of 71 launched that night.