‘Car explodes’ at Moscow shopping centre as three blasts heard & black smoke seen billowing in city centre

MOSCOW city centre has reportedly been rocked by three powerful explosions which came from a car parked underground.

Reports suggest the vehicle blew up beneath a shopping centre and sparked a major fire.

Footage posted to social media shows thick black smoke billowing between the city's skyscrapers on the banks of the Moskva River.

The exploding car was reportedly parked beneath the Afimall City shopping centre in central Moscow - just 3.5 miles from the Kremlin.

It is not yet clear whether anyone was inside the car when it blew up.

Drivers of other parked cars swiftly moved their vehicles out onto the street, according to local media.

Authorities have reportedly not ruled out sabotage and terrorism behind the explosions.

Local media reported the fire had been extinguished following an emergency response.

More clips posted to social media seem to show a car burning ferociously a short way inside an underground compound.

Workmen can be seen cautiously approaching the blaze as smoke pours out.

The blasts come on the same day Putin is set to meet the Sultan of Oman in Moscow.

Anxiety over an attack was obvious after FSO officers were spotted searching nearby sewer hatches for bombs.

Kremlin guards even confiscated a ceremonial dagger from the Sultan's entourage, which was meant to be presented to Putin as a gift.

The Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, 69, was on a state visit to Moscow and hosted by Putin in the Grand Kremlin Palace.

Russia is itself accused of setting a string of fires and explosions in a sabotage campaign around Europe - including in the UK.

Vulnerable civilians inside Ukraine have been blackmailed and bribed by Kremlin masterminds into planting explosives on military targets.

A Ukrainian-owned warehouse in east London was set alight in March 2024, and Brit Dylan Earl has admitted arranging it under instruction from Russia.

Then, in July, a letter bomb was planted on a plane to Britain - setting fire to a DHL warehouse in Birmingham when it detonated.

Leipzig in Germany was also hit with a series of booby-trapped parcels, with Russia the prime suspect.

A flammable substance was reportedly hidden in electric massage devices.

Four people were arrested in Poland in relation to the devious scheme, which is thought to have been a trial run for more postal bombs destined for the US.

Elsewhere, a DHL jet plummeted from Lithuania's skies and erupted into a fireball in November 2024.

Lithuania's president Gitanas Nausėda said that almost every plane crash should be checked for Russian interference going forwards.

And Poland's PM Donald Tusk said: "I can only confirm the validity of fears that Russia was planning acts of air terror, not only against Poland but against airlines around the world."

An arson attack in Latvia in February last year has separately been linked to Russia.

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