Three people - including two police officers - have been killed in a huge explosion in Moscow, Russian authorities said.
A traffic unit approached a man acting suspiciously near the site where a senior general was killed two days ago by a car bomb.
When they tried to detain the suspect, a device detonated in the city’s Yeletskaya Street.
A string of Russian military figures and high-profile supporters of the war in Ukraine have been assassinated during the nearly four-year-old conflict.
The two police officers died from their injuries, along with another individual who was standing nearby.
Russia’s State Investigative Committee did not specify who the third person was.
The blast took place close to the location where Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, 56, head of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s army operational training directorate, was killed on Monday. An explosive device had been planted under a car.
In a statement on Telegram, investigate committee spokesman Svetlana Petrenko said that a criminal case was being investigated in Moscow “regarding an attempt on the lives of traffic police officers”.
The deceased officers have been named by Russian media as Ilya Klimanov, 24, and Maxim Gorbunov, 25.
Speaking to the Reuters news agency, Alexander, a resident who lives close by, said: “There was an explosion.
“It was loud bang - like with the car a few days ago.”
Another resident named Roza said she was woken up by the blast in the early hours and that the entire building appeared to shake.
Unofficial Russian online news channels said the bomber was one of those killed and that he detonated the bomb when approached by the officers. Reuters could not independently confirm those details.
There was no official comment from Ukraine.
But Myrotvorets, an unofficial Ukrainian website that provides a database of people described as war criminals or traitors, updated its entry on Sarvarov to say the general had been “liquidated”.
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