Bomb Kills Three Outside Moscow Restaurant Hosting Military Officers

A bomb exploded outside a restaurant in central Moscow on Saturday evening, killing at least three people and wounding more than 20, Russian officials said. Among the dead was an unidentified woman who attempted to carry the explosive device into the venue, along with a security guard who approached to search her and a customer nearby.

Reporting indicates the device, hidden in a gift box and packed with metal ball bearings, detonated when a guard became suspicious and approached the woman at a private event that senior Russian military officers were attending. Russian authorities did not immediately identify the woman or state a motive, and it was not clear whether she detonated the device deliberately. No party has claimed responsibility, and the account is based on Russian official statements.

The attack occurred in an affluent district of the capital, far from the front, and targeted a gathering of military figures. It shows that the war Russia is fighting in Ukraine increasingly affects its interior, through drone strikes on refineries and cities and now an attack in central Moscow.