Uraldronzavod director wounded in car explosion; driver dead

A car bomb targeting Vladimir Tkachuk, the director of Russian drone manufacturer Uraldronzavod, exploded near Yekaterinburg on August 12, 2025. Tkachuk was seriously injured, and his driver, who also served as a bodyguard, was killed instantly. The blast occurred while Tkachuk was in the passenger seat of a Mercedes sedan, according to local media reports.

The attack marks the second high-profile attempt on a Russian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry executive in less than a month. On July 29, an unidentified gunman shot at Andrei Cherezov, director of the Russian Air Transport Laboratory,