Russian Foreign Ministry on Balzi Rossi restaurant blast in Moscow: ‘Kyiv terrorists wanted to scare Italians working in Russia’

Per Meduza, Russian authorities are giving conflicting accounts of an explosion that tore through Moscow's Balzi Rossi restaurant on the evening of August first. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said a homemade device detonated after a young woman tried to carry it inside, killing her, a security guard who intervened, and one patron, with twenty-one others hurt. Russia's embassy in Italy has since given a higher toll of five dead and nineteen injured, blaming what it called Kyiv terrorists, while unconfirmed Telegram reports also put the deaths at five. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has called the blast a terrorist attack, and authorities have not confirmed reports that the real target was a newly appointed Russian Aerospace Forces commander marking his birthday there that night.

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