Armen Sarkisyan, collaborator of the Ukrainian Donetsk region supported by Moscow, died in hospital after being injured by an explosion in an elite residential complex in Moscow on Monday, according to Russian state media.
An explosion in a high -end residential building in Moscow killed a person and injured four others on Monday morning, Russian news agencies reported, citing emergency services.
According to the Russian media, the explosion was caused by an unidentified machine which exploded when a man accompanied by bodyguards entered the hall of the Scarlet Sails complex (“Alye Parusa”), located on the banks of the Moskova, 12 km from the Kremlin.
The alleged target and the only person killed in the explosion was identified as Armen Sarkisyan, a pro-Russian collaborator in the Donetsk region sought by Ukraine.
Originally from the city of Horlivka, occupied by Russia in the Donetsk region, Armen Sarkisyan has been wanted by Kyiv since 2014.
He appears on the international list of people wanted since 2014 for organizing murders in the center of kyiv, said the Ukraine Security Service (SBU).
Patron of crime and close collaborator of former Ukrainian president Pro-Kremlin Viktor Ianoukovitch, Armen Sarkissian would have been at the head of pro-government militia, known as “Tititushky”, who harassed and attacked the pro-Euroidan demonstrators During the 2014 Revolution.
After the outbreak of war, Sarkissian founded the special battalion of the separate “Arbat” guards to fight against Ukraine. The unit would be made up of Armenians of strain, many of which have a criminal record.
In December, the Ukrainian security service SBU said that it had also formed a pro-Russian military unit made up of condemned local fighters and that it had organized purchases of supplies for front line units. These forces first fought in Totretsk, in the Ukrainian Donetsk region, then in Koursk, the Russian border region partially controlled by kyiv since last August.
It was first announced that the paramilitary leader had been killed, but the Russian media then specified that he had been transported to the hospital and that he had to suffer an amputation of the leg.
The Russian investigation committee, which opened an investigation into the explosion, later confirmed that Mr. Sarkisyan died in the hospital.
Images broadcast by the main Russian investigation organization, the investigation committee, show a building hall whose glass doors have shattered and whose suspended ceilings were torn off.
Additional sources • AP
