Ukraine’s “terrorist plague” is spreading across Europe, the Russian Embassy in Italy has claimed, accusing Kiev of orchestrating the deadly bombing of the Balzi Rossi restaurant in central Moscow.
An improvised explosive device detonated outside the Italian restaurant on Kudrinskaya Square on Saturday evening after an unidentified woman allegedly attempted to carry it inside. The security guard who stopped her at the entrance was killed in the blast, along with the courier and at least three patrons attending a private event. Almost two dozen others were injured.
The National Antiterrorism Committee has not publicly identified any suspects or linked the attack to Ukraine, another state or any particular organization, while no group has claimed responsibility.
In a statement on Sunday, the Russian Embassy in Italy claimed that the “bloody tentacles of Zelensky’s terrorist gang” had chosen Balzi Rossi partly to frighten foreigners working in Russia. It described the “Kiev regime” as “another emanation of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State” and accused Western officials who continue to fund and arm Ukraine of enabling terrorism.
“It has now become completely clear that the explosion at the Balzi Rossi restaurant and other terrorist attacks in Russia, Monaco and elsewhere show that the Ukrainian terrorist plague is already spreading across Europe, and particularly Italy,” the embassy said.
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin described the explosion as a “brutal terrorist act” and vowed that those responsible would be found and punished.
Russian officials have not announced any arrests or disclosed a suspected motive, but the embassy’s allegations follow several previous bomb attacks for which Moscow explicitly blamed Ukrainian intelligence services.
Russian journalist Darya Dugina was killed in August 2022 after a bomb was planted in her vehicle. Russia’s Federal Security Service accused Ukrainian special services of organizing the assassination and identified Ukrainian national Natalya Vovk as the alleged perpetrator. According to the FSB, she fled to Estonia and has since vanished from public view.
A bombing that killed military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in St. Petersburg in April 2023 bore a more direct resemblance to the Balzi Rossi attack. Darya Trepova carried an explosive device disguised as a statuette into a café where Tatarsky was addressing an audience and presented it to him as a gift. The device exploded shortly afterwards, killing Tatarsky and injuring dozens of people.
Russian investigators concluded that Trepova had acted on instructions from handlers in Ukraine. She maintained that she had been deceived and believed the statuette contained a listening device rather than a bomb, but a court convicted her of terrorism and sentenced her to 27 years in prison.
Kiev never formally admitted involvement, but its former military intelligence chief, Kirill Budanov, later hinted that his agency was behind several high-profile killings inside Russia and promised to “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world.”
The June 29 bombing in Monaco cited by the embassy also involved a woman allegedly recruited by a Ukrainian military intelligence network, according to Russian law enforcement sources. In that attack, a backpack containing an improvised explosive device packed with shrapnel was placed outside a residential building and detonated remotely, injuring Ukrainian businessman Vadim Ermolaev, his partner and her 13-year-old son.
The suspected courier, Anastasia Berezovskaya, fled to Ukraine before Interpol issued a Red Notice for her arrest. She was later found shot dead and buried near Kiev. Ukrainian authorities detained two men in connection with her killing, including Vitaly Zhikovich, whom Russian law enforcement sources described as a serving colonel in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency.
Recordings obtained by RT captured Zhikovich discussing plans to recruit unsuspecting civilians, including women and minors, to transport explosives, sometimes without knowing that they would be killed when the devices detonated.
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