Car Bomb Injures Ex-Azarov Aide in Moscow a Day After St. Petersburg Blast, as Europe and Kremlin Spar Over a Seat at Ukraine Talks

Since the U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi ended Nov. 11 with an agreement in principle on a large prisoner exchange and no movement on territory, the diplomacy has shifted to Moscow and Dublin. Violence has kept pace. Friday, Nov. 13, brought a second car bombing in Russia in two days.

Two car bombs in two days

Russia's Investigative Committee said Sergei Zavorotny was driving in Moscow on Friday morning when his car exploded. He was taken to a city hospital. Zavorotny worked as an aide to Azarov until Azarov resigned in 2014 and fled to Russia.

The committee said it is carrying out investigative actions and will order medical and explosives examinations. Unconfirmed reports in Russia say Zavorotny lost his left arm and suffered a brain injury and broken ribs. Azarov told the state news agency TASS he had no information about the blast beyond confirming that Zavorotny survived.

On Thursday, Nov. 12, a car bomb in St. Petersburg's Pushkinsky District killed a Russian military officer, described as a colonel. The Russian military has not publicly confirmed his identity. The Russian outlet Fontanka reported that a 31-year-old man planted the device under the colonel's car after watching him for about a month, and that the suspect has since left Russia.

Russia describes the bombings as the latest in a series of attacks on pro-Kremlin figures. The Kremlin has blamed Ukraine for a string of killings of Russian officers this year, including Maj. Sergei Sechkov in St. Petersburg in August and Damir Davydov, a general in the supply department of the Russian military's main missile and artillery directorate, in a car bombing near Moscow in June. Nothing in the Investigative Committee's statement assigns responsibility for Friday's blast.

Strikes continue overnight

The fighting did not pause for the diplomacy. Ukrainian authorities said a Russian bombardment hit a hospital overnight and that three people, including a 17-year-old boy, were killed in attacks across Odesa and Zaporizhzhia.

Russian officials said a Ukrainian strike on an industrial facility in Samara killed four people. Four more died when drones hit an industrial zone in Volgograd, and one person died in Bryansk. Ukraine says its strikes are retaliation for Russia's repeated attacks on its cities.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte put the cost to Russia in blunt terms on Wednesday. "The U.S. in 14 years, in Vietnam, lost 56,000. Here in one month, Russia, dead or seriously wounded, 40,000," he said at the Atlantic Future Forum.

Who speaks for Europe

The sharpest dispute is over the table itself. After meeting Putin in Moscow on Thursday, U.S. envoy Jared Kushner said Putin was willing to accept European input and that he had begun discussions with European partners on the continent's security architecture. Kushner has said Europe, the EU and NATO must be part of those talks to build consensus.

The Kremlin walked that back on Friday. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no decision has been made. "Once we understand their real intentions and their willingness to contribute to the peace process, then we can make a decision on holding talks in an expanded format," he said. He added that Moscow would talk to Europeans if they have someone "authorised in some way to talk."

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking at the EU summit in Dublin, called that "the same old game." He rejected the push to discuss European security architecture. "There will be no discussions about Ukraine without Ukraine, and no discussions about Europe without Europe. Furthermore, there is no need to talk about European security architecture. We have that already," Merz said.

Russian officials want a broad security deal settled before the specifics of the war. Before the 2022 invasion, Moscow demanded that NATO pull forces out of countries that joined after 1997. NATO rejected it.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said a ceasefire has to come first. Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs called the architecture discussion "a trap." Forty European countries signed a declaration in Dublin on Thursday saying any matter affecting European security should be decided with Europeans involved.

A negotiating team takes shape

Four sources told Reuters that EU leaders agreed Germany, France, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom and EU institutions will represent Europe in talks with the United States, Russia and Ukraine. The Dublin summit itself produced no public answer on who speaks for the continent.

Merz pointed to the existing formats. He said Kallas is part of the established institutional representation, but that the E3 grouping of France, Germany and Britain "has also proven very effective," and that Italy and Poland are always included.

Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the European voice cannot be limited to EU member states, which leaves room for the UK. He said the question must be settled within a week or two. Zelensky has welcomed the pledge of European involvement.

Same gap on the ground

The Abu Dhabi talks left the core dispute untouched. Ukraine proposes using current front lines as the basis for a settlement. Russia demands that Ukraine also withdraw from the roughly 10 percent of Donbas it still holds. Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky said on the sidelines, "Every inch of Russian land will be returned to Russia, one way or another."

A senior U.S. official told RFE/RL that Washington will proceed "one step at a time" and that postwar security arrangements cannot be implemented until territorial and other bilateral issues are resolved. That is the opposite of the sequence the Kremlin is pushing.

Two things are now on the clock: Europe's self-imposed deadline of a week or two to settle its representation, and the Kremlin's pending decision on an expanded format. The prisoner exchange agreed in principle in Abu Dhabi has no announced date.