Photo: SOTA

A car bomb in the north of Moscow has injured two, the car’s owner and a passenger, the press service of Russia’s Investigative Committee announced on Wednesday.

A criminal case for attempted murder has been opened, and the case may subsequently be reclassified as a terrorist act, the Investigative Committee added.

A spokesperson for Russia’s Interior Ministry said that an “unidentified object” had exploded in a car in northern Moscow on Wednesday morning and that the two people in the car had suffered injuries and been hospitalised.

While Telegram channel ASTRA reported that the car belonged to Andrey Torgashov, the deputy chief of a military satellite communications unit, who lost both his legs when his Toyota Land Cruiser exploded, Torgashov’s wife, Maya denied that her husband had been injured in the blast, telling Telegram channel 360.ru that he was fine and that the information had been incorrect.

Torgashov himself subsequently also spoke to the press to deny reports that he was injured in the blast, saying he was at work at the time and lived in a completely different area of the city.

Baza Telegram channel wrote that the man injured in the explosion was Torgashov’s namesake, who also serves in the Russian Armed Forces but has no connection to Torgashov’s military unit.

State-affiliated business daily Kommersant reported that a Russian military intelligence officer responsible for communications had been in the car and suggested that the car bomb had been the work of the Ukrainian secret services.