Armen Sarkisyan (С). Photo: the Arbat Battalion / Telegram
The initial investigation into an explosion at an elite apartment complex in northwest Moscow on Monday that killed the founder of a Russian paramilitary battalion has found that the attack was likely the work of a suicide bomber, state news agency TASS reported on Tuesday.
Armen Sarkisyan, the founder of the Arbat Battalion, a paramilitary unit made up of ethnic Armenians recruited from prisons, was killed on Monday after an explosive device detonated in the lobby of his apartment building.
According to TASS sources, the explosive device was set off by an unidentified man who died at the scene. If confirmed, this would be the first suicide bombing in Moscow since 2011, when 37 people were killed in an attack at Domodedovo Airport.
While it was initially reported that Sarkisyan’s bodyguard had been killed alongside his boss in the blast, he was later revealed to have survived the attack with injuries. The body that was mistaken for his is now believed to be that of the suicide bomber, according to state-affiliated news agency Interfax.
Police are considering several motives for Sarkisyan’s killing, including “personal revenge”, TASS wrote, while Interfax said that Ukrainian involvement had not yet been ruled out.
Pro-Kremlin Telegram channel 112 speculated on Tuesday that the bomber was an “Armenian citizen with previous convictions” who manually detonated a Soviet-made anti-personnel mine when he saw Sarkisyan approaching.
The channel added that while Kyiv’s involvement in the attack was also being considered, another plausible motive for the attack was a business dispute, adding that Sarkisyan had been “one of the largest suppliers of tobacco from abroad” in Russia.
Sarkisyan was born in Armenia but moved to Horlivka, a city in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, in his youth. He has been on Ukraine’s wanted list since 2014 for allegedly paying agents provocateurs to incite violence during the 2014 Maidan protests in Kyiv, according to Ukrainska Pravda, which described him as “a crime lord” who had ties to ousted pro-Moscow Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
