A regional Russian lawmaker who joined the invasion force in Ukraine says he was the target of a car bombing over the weekend in territory occupied by Moscow\u2019s troops.<\/p>\n
Denis Kharitonov, a deputy from the ruling United Russia party in the Astrakhan regional assembly, posted a video on Telegram showing his vehicle engulfed in flames on the side of a road. He claims the car exploded while he was carrying out \u201cduties\u201d for Russia\u2019s offensive in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI use my own car to carry out duties in the zone of the special military operation,\u201d Kharitonov wrote, using the Kremlin\u2019s term for the invasion. \u201cToday, while performing another duty, it exploded and burned to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kharitonov did not specify whether he was inside the vehicle when the blast occurred or provide any additional details about the location and circumstances of the alleged attack. However, he said \u201ca special brigade department\u201d was investigating the incident.<\/p>\n
If confirmed, Kharitonov would be the latest in a string of Russian officials, military leaders, and pro-war figures who have been targeted in apparent assassination attempts since Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Ukrainian authorities have historically not commented on such incidents.<\/p>\n
The reports of violence targeting Russians in occupied territories of Ukraine underscore the widening insecurity faced by Moscow\u2019s forces there, even as they have seized further territory in the south and east. Partisan attacks and acts of sabotage behind Russian lines have repeatedly undermined the Kremlin\u2019s control.<\/p>\n
Kharitonov, who joined Russia\u2019s military effort after the invasion began, represents a district in the Astrakhan region along the Caspian Sea to the legislative assembly in Moscow. It was not immediately clear what specific \u201cduties\u201d he was carrying out in occupied parts of Ukraine at the time of the claimed bombing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Denis Kharitonov, a deputy from the ruling United Russia party in the Astrakhan regional assembly, posted a video on Telegram showing his vehicle engulfed in flames on the side of a road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":406,"featured_media":17003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[10548,894,10547,281,78,215],"class_list":["post-17002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","tag-astrakhan","tag-caspian-sea","tag-kharitonovov","tag-moscow","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}