Three dead in Moscow blast near Italian restaurant
A bombing outside an Italian restaurant in central Moscow has killed three people, highlighting how the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues to spill into civilian spaces and raising security risks for European businesses abroad.
A homemade explosive device killed three people and injured at least 21 near the Balzi Rossi restaurant in central Moscow on Saturday evening. Russia’s anti-terrorism committee said an unidentified woman carrying the bomb was stopped by a security guard before the device detonated. The blast killed the woman, the guard, and a restaurant customer.
The attack struck an Italian venue located on the ground floor of one of the Russian capital’s seven Stalin-era skyscrapers at Kudrinskaya Square. The restaurant’s website indicated it was closed to the public for a private event at the time. For European governments and businesses still maintaining a footprint in Russia, the explosion underscores the persistent security risks tied to the ongoing war.
Unverified reports on Russian social media suggested a senior military commander was the intended target of the attack. The Kommersant daily reported that the woman carrying the device may not have known she had it, suggesting the bomb was detonated remotely by someone else.
This operational method mirrors a 2023 attack that killed Russian pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky. In that incident, a young woman delivered a concealed bomb inside a statuette without knowing its contents. Darya Trepova was later jailed for 27 years, claiming she acted under the instruction of a man in Ukraine who had sent her money.
The latest blast occurs more than four years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a conflict
