MOSCOW - An ex-officer of Ukraine’s SBU security services was wounded on April 12, after his car was blown up in Moscow, Russian state media reported.

Mr Vasily Prozorov received wounds to his hands and legs, a Russian security source told state news agency Ria Novosti.

A source in the emergency services told Russian media he was wounded after an explosive device was set off underneath his four-wheel drive vehicle, outside his home in northern Moscow.

The anonymous source said the explosion happened as Mr Prozorov started his car.

Footage published on social media showed part of the car exploding as a man entered it in a car park outside a residential building.

Russian state media quoted a source close to Mr Prozorov – also anonymously – who said he was alive and that his life was not in danger.

“He is alive, everything is fine,” the source was quoted as saying.

In March 2019, Mr Prozorov gave a press conference in Moscow saying he moved for “ideological reasons.”

RIA Novosti said on April 12 he had given an interview to the agency days before the apparent assassination attempt.

It quoted him as saying that he used to work for the SBU in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, before moving to Kyiv in April 2014 and “contacted representatives of Russian security services and suggested cooperation”.

“From the first days, I started to work, giving information to the security services of the Russian Federation,” he said.

A number of officials who have collaborated with Moscow have been targeted by assassination attempts in occupied Ukraine during Russia’s two-year long offensive there. AFP