Russian drone factory boss badly injured in car blast that kills driver

Vladimir Tkachuk, the director of a factory that produces drones for Russia's military, suffered severe injuries in a car explosion that claimed the driver's life. The incident occurred on Tuesday night near Yekaterinburg, a city in the Ural Mountains 1,400km east of Moscow. Tkachuk, who founded the Uraldronzavod factory, was hospitalized in critical condition.

The Upyr drone, a low-cost, first-person view drone used by troops to evade jamming, was developed by Tkachuk and his team. The Upyr was praised for its resistance to jamming during a presentation to Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2024. Tkachuk, a staunch supporter of the Kremlin's military campaign in Ukraine, also runs a Telegram channel, Obsessed with War, which boasts over 650,000 subscribers.

The explosion came a week after another drone manufacturer, Andrei Cherezov, was shot and wounded in Tula. Russian authorities have accused Ukraine of orchestrating a series of bombings and attacks on high-profile military officials and public figures since Moscow's invasion in February 2022. The explosion followed a deadly bombing at a popular Moscow restaurant on Saturday, which the Russian embassy in Rome blamed on Ukraine, describing it as an attempt to intimidate the Italian community in Russia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry reposted the embassy's statement, but the suspected perpetrators remain unnamed. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the attack a "brutal terrorist act," but did not reveal the identity of the perpetrators. Some Russian media outlets claimed the bombing targeted a Russian general, Colonel General Alexander Chaiko, who recently became the chief of Russia's aerospace forces. However, these claims could not be independently verified.