Russian man killed by a black widow’s bomb

The final moments in the life of a Russian bomb disposal expert were captured on film today as he vainly tried to defuse a deadly package carried by a Chechen “black widow” into central Moscow.

As Federal Security Service Major Georgy Trofimov crouched down in a protective suit to inspect the bomb, it exploded in a burst of smoke and sparks - throwing him back several yards into the street.

Trofimov, 30 this month, had also helped defuse part of an explosive belt on one of the two female Chechen suicide bombers who died in Saturday’s attacks at a Moscow rock festival that killed 14 other people and injured about 60.

Investigators linked both attacks to a terrorist ring training female suicide bombers for attacks across the country.

Police stopped a woman trying to carry a bag with explosives into a restaurant on Moscow’s Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street, a section of the capital’s main boulevard leading to the Kremlin.

After clearing the area around the pavement where the device containing more than a pound of TNT was placed and failing to trigger the device with a remote-controlled robot, Major Trofimov was called in.

Itar-Tass news agency named the woman as Zarima Muzhikhoyeva, 22, and said she was one of the so-called “black widows”, or Chechen women who have lost husbands in fighting with Russian forces.

Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said the two attacks were connected and co-ordinated by a unit of terrorists “with a common leadership,” but he declined to name the ringleaders.

“We have information that will enable us to shortly hunt down this unit training female suicide bombers,” he said.

Gryzlov said all Russians, “not only Muscovites, but also residents of other cities, should be vigilant.”

President Vladimir Putin’s main envoy in the war torn Caucasus state of Chechnya had warned earlier of an increased threat of such suicide bombings across the country.

“The threat of spreading of the ’Palestinian variant’ of terrorism in Russia has become reality,” he told an international conference in Rome.