A second Russian officer is killed by a car bomb on the same St. Petersburg road in eleven weeks

The St. Petersburg directorate of Russia's Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case for the murder of a serviceman. It has not named him, has not said who it thinks planted the bomb and has not said whether it will treat the case as terrorism. Almost everything else in the public record comes from the city outlet Fontanka and from outlets repeating it.⁠20⁠3

The blast hit at about 7 a.m. local time outside Kolpinskoye Highway 32, at the corner of Polotskaya Street in the Slavyanka microdistrict. A shopping centre stands next to the spot, with a Lenta hypermarket nearby. The colonel had reportedly driven only about 300 metres from home. A city bus was passing at that moment. The blast blew out its windows with 30 to 40 people aboard, and nobody on it was reported hurt. A kiosk worker told Fontanka that ambulances came within about four minutes: "It was a powerful explosion here, everything shook." Video first posted by the Telegram channel Shot shows a flash and a bang, then car alarms. Military police came to the scene, and the highway was closed while five bus routes were diverted until about 4 p.m. Hours after the blast, the body was still in the car under a blue cover.⁠21⁠6⁠3⁠5

The early reports put a second person in the car. Caspian Post, citing Lenta.ru, reported at 06:09 UTC that a family member travelling with the colonel had been injured and survived. Lenta News, NV and Pryamim carried the same detail, and 47news said a passenger had been taken to hospital. About an hour later La Razón, citing Fontanka, reported that the outlet had corrected itself: surveillance footage showed the colonel leaving home and getting into the car alone. That later account is the one now carried locally. No official has addressed it, and no hospital patient connected to the blast has been confirmed.⁠1⁠6⁠7⁠3

The device is also described in different ways. Caspian Post, citing Lenta.ru, says it was fixed under the car and set off remotely as he drove out of the courtyard, which matches Fontanka's own photo report. La Razón, citing the same outlet, describes dynamite on the floor of the car that went off shortly after he started driving. 47news, citing preliminary information, says the blast came after the driver started the engine and began to move. Investigators have named neither the explosive nor the trigger. The timing varies as well. NV gives about 07:00, while 47news gives about 07:30, and residents told Fontanka anything from 6:20 to 7.⁠1⁠21⁠3⁠7⁠5

Then there is the matter of who he was. Pryamim noted posts in Russian military circles mourning an "eternal flight," a phrase used for airmen, which hints at an aviation link that nothing confirms. One British tabloid headline called him "Putin's top colonel." Nothing on the record supports that description.⁠4⁠8

By mid-afternoon Fontanka had published a detailed account that it attributed to investigators. None of them said it on the record. In that account the bomber is a 31-year-old man from Pskov who took a job as a general labourer at the Lenta hypermarket about a month earlier. The colonel parked in its car park, and from there, the account says, the man tracked his movements.⁠22

The same account says he went on from Istanbul to Chisinau. Fontanka says Moldova does not extradite to Russia. Citing security officials, it also reports that several people were involved and that a "curator" kept in touch with participants in Ukraine. It says the bomb reached the Leningrad region from the Baltic direction by balloon and was left in a dead drop, which the man emptied. Fontanka's profile places him in opposition circles. It says he served ten days' arrest for an unsanctioned protest at Gostiny Dvor on March 6, 2022, and, citing leaked records, that he donated to Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, which Russia has banned as extremist.⁠22

That is a very complete story for the first day of an investigation, with flight times, a hiring date, a delivery method and a political profile. Not one piece of it has a named source. The Investigative Committee has named no suspect, announced no arrest and blamed no one. Ukraine has said nothing. A separate report that investigators are looking at possible Ukrainian intelligence involvement, as in earlier attacks, also rests on unnamed sources. Until an official confirms it, the Pskov account is a briefing and should not be treated as a finding.⁠20⁠3

The first Kolpinskoye Highway victim was later identified as Sergei Sechkov, 43, a lieutenant colonel in a St. Petersburg air force and air defence unit. His father confirmed the death to the independent outlet Agentstvo. The local outlet 78.ru reported that he had told his superiors he was "on liquidation lists" and checked his car before every drive. Russian and Ukrainian outlets tied him to the 332nd Guards Helicopter Regiment, which Ukraine's military intelligence had accused of striking civilians. Fontanka, as reported by Meduza, said a 24-year-old Russian woman planted that bomb and was already in Moldova by the time the FSB traced her to Turkey. No arrest has been reported.⁠17⁠14⁠18⁠16

The two cases match closely: an officer leaving home on the same stretch of road, a device under the car, and a reported bomber flying out through Turkey to Moldova before the bomb goes off. If the briefings are accurate, a method that worked in August has worked again, and Russia's security services were late both times. If they are not accurate, the authorities have yet to offer anything in their place.