Law enforcement authorities in Moscow on Tuesday announced the arrests of two teenagers on suspicion of planning a car bomb attack in the Russian capital on the same day that a man was killed when his car exploded in a nearby suburb.
Federal investigators said a “controlled detonation” was carried out in southwestern Moscow after an explosive device was found underneath a vehicle they said belonged to an employee of a “scientific-industrial enterprise.”
The Investigative Committee, Russia’s top investigative body, did not identify either the employee or their place of work. However, exiled Russian news outlets, citing images of the controlled explosion circulating on social media, geolocated the incident to the M.F. Stelmakh Polyus research institute, which specializes in laser technology.
Investigators claimed Wednesday that a teenage girl, acting on the instructions of unidentified handlers, retrieved an explosive device from a hidden cache and handed it over to a teenage boy, who then allegedly placed it and a GPS tracker onto the targeted vehicle.
Both teenagers were charged with attempted murder and the illegal manufacture and storage of explosives.
