A Toyota exploded in Moscow’s Chertanovo district, according to the Telegram channels Mash, Shot, Baza, and Ostorozhno Novosti.

The explosion occurred in the courtyard of a residential building on Kirovogradskaya Street near the Yuzhnaya metro station, Baza reported. Witnesses said they saw a man lying on the pavement next to the car after the blast.

Mash specified that the vehicle was a Toyota Fortuner SUV belonging to Sergei Zavorotny. The Telegram channel described him as an “international affairs journalist” who had “held government positions in Ukraine.”

The explosive device was attached to the underside of the car on the driver’s side and detonated as the vehicle was being driven down the street, Telegram channels reported. Zavorotny was behind the wheel, according to Shot and Mash. He survived the explosion but is in serious condition, Telegram channels said.

The Investigative Committee, a Russian federal investigating authority, said a criminal case had been opened over the car explosion on Kirovogradskaya Street in Moscow. The statement did not name the driver, and it was unclear what charge was being pursued.

Sergei Zavorotny worked at the pro-Kremlin Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, and from 2003 to 2004 headed the press service for the Rodina party’s faction in Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament. He later became the press secretary for Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, who held the post from 2010 to 2014 under Viktor Yanukovych.

Zavorotny later co-wrote a book with journalist Alexei Berdnikov titled “Yanukovych Surrendered. The State Department Accepted. How Russia Lost Ukraine. Notes of an Adviser to Mykola Azarov.” He presented the book at the Biblio-Globus bookstore in Moscow in 2018. The annotation on the LiveLib website says it is “the most detailed and unflattering investigation into the events of the Kyiv coup of February 2014.”