Russian drone factory director badly injured in car explosion

MOSCOW (AP) — The director of a factory supplying drones to the Russian military was badly wounded when his car exploded, news reports said Wednesday.

The state Tass and RIA Novosti agencies said that Vladimir Tkachuk was hospitalized in grave condition following the explosion late Tuesday in Bolshoy Istok just outside Yekaterinburg, 1,400 kilometers (about 870 miles) east of Moscow. It didn’t immediately give details of the explosion or say who could be responsible. There was no immediate comment from the authorities.

Tkachuk headed the Uraldronzavod factory that manufactures Upyr (Russian for Ghoul) drones. Tkachuk, a small-scale entrepreneur, set up a team of engineers that developed the Upyr and organized its production near Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city and a key industrial hub in the Ural Mountains

The Upyr, a cheap and simple first-person view drone, was hailed by troops for the protection it offers against jamming.

Russian authorities have blamed Kyiv for a series of bombings and other attacks against senior military officials after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

The explosion followed Saturday’s deadly bombing at an upscale Moscow restaurant, which the Russian Embassy in Rome blamed on Ukraine, describing it as an attempt to intimidate the Italian community in Russia. It said in a statement Monday that the attack on the Balzi Rossi restaurant killed five and injured 19.

The Russian Foreign Ministry reposted the embassy statement without comment, and Russia’s security agencies haven’t named the suspected culprits. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has described the bombing as a “brutal terrorist act,” but did not say who was responsible.

Several Russian media outlets claimed the bombing targeted a Russian general who was celebrating his birthday at the restaurant. Some claimed that the general was Col.-Gen. Alexander Chaiko, who led the troops that made a botched attempt to storm the Ukrainian capital in 2022 and recently was appointed the chief of Russia’s aerospace forces. The claims could not be independently verified.

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