Pro-Yeltsin Candidate for Vice Mayor Injured in Moscow Bomb Blast

A supporter of Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin who is running for vice mayor of Moscow was seriously injured Friday when a bomb was detonated by remote control as he walked out of his apartment building.

Valery Shantsev, 48, who is running with Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov, suffered multiple burns and shrapnel wounds to his back and legs but was in stable condition in a Moscow hospital, according to Russian news services.

Although political assassinations are not new to Russia, this was the first incident of serious violence in the run-up to the election scheduled for June 16, and it reminded Russians how dangerous it can be to run for office.

If Shantsev had died, it would have sabotaged Luzhkov’s reelection bid, because according to election rules the whole ticket would have been disqualified.

Luzhkov speculated about two likely motives for the attack: disruption of the election or punishment of Shantsev for deserting the Communist Party.

Shantsev was a leading Communist in Moscow until he quit the party in 1994. He now works as the mayor’s appointed head of Moscow’s southern administrative district.

“It is possible that someone decided to seek revenge against him for his betrayal of Communists,” Luzhkov told reporters in the Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, where he was at the time of the attack, according to the Itar-Tass news service.

There are four candidates in the race to be Moscow’s next mayor. One candidate, Alexander Krasnov, was allied with Yeltsin’s opposition during an armed confrontation with hard-liners in parliament in October 1993. When that parliament briefly declared Yeltsin impeached and Alexander V. Rutskoi acting president, Krasnov was appointed mayor of Moscow.

The other two candidates are a woman backed by the Communists and a Luzhkov supporter who entered the race early on because the election must be contested to be valid.

Luzhkov, a protege of Yeltsin, is running well ahead, with the support of 70% to 80% of respondents in recent public opinion polls.

Yeltsin’s campaign has been relying on Luzhkov’s popularity to bring more Muscovites to the polls, so if the mayor’s candidacy had been rendered invalid, it could have hurt Yeltsin.

Contract killings have become widespread in post-Communist Russia.

In 1995 alone, 60 such slayings occurred in Moscow in the struggle over wealth and property, according to the Russian Security Council.

Most of the victims have been bankers and wealthy businessmen, but politicians have not been spared.

During the campaign for December’s parliamentary election, at least two candidates were killed. A candidate from Chelyabinsk, Mikhail Lezhnev, was slain by a gunman, and Sergei Markidonov, who was running for reelection from Chita, was also shot dead.

Three other members of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, were slain in 1994 and 1995.

Friday afternoon at the apartment building where Shantsev was attacked, near Moscow’s indoor Olympic Stadium, workers were busy repairing windows that had been blown out by the morning blast. The stone stairs leading to the door had been reduced to rubble.

Neighbors expressed their horror that Russia has become such a violent place.

“It’s disgraceful,” said one, a woman in her 50s who was sprayed with glass shards when her window was shattered in the blast. “I can’t believe that people use such methods to wage their political battles.”

She said it made her think of what people must feel in war zones such as Chechnya, the southern republic where separatists have been fighting for 18 months with Russian troops sent by Yeltsin.

“I’ve been distraught all day long,” added the woman, who was afraid to give her name. “I keep thinking about the peaceful people who live in Chechnya. This was just one blast. I can’t imagine how they feel after seeing so many explosions all the time.”

Experts believe that the explosive device was home-made, according to Tass.

An aide to Shantsev and a passerby, a woman walking a dog, were also injured.

Several cars parked near the site of the blast were damaged, with windows knocked out, tires deflated and bodies dented.

The owner of one of the cars, a man in his 40s named Yevgeny who declined to give his last name, said such things have become common in Moscow.

“What’s there to be surprised about?” he asked. “I just wish we hadn’t parked our car there last night.”