President Boris Yeltsin Wednesday condemned a subway bombing that killed four people and injured 12 in southern Moscow and called it another reason to support his re-election bid.
Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a Yeltsin ally, accused "reactionary forces" of stopping at nothing by planting a bomb on the underside of a seat on the city subway in the final days before Sunday's vote.Both Yeltsin and Luzhkov are running for re-election. The president faces fierce competition from Communist leader Gennady Zyu-ganov.
Communist leaders hinted that Yeltsin's allies might be behind Tuesday night's blast at the Tulskaya station three miles south of the Kremlin, and could use it as a pretext for a security crackdown.
"I was shocked to the bottom of my heart by the news," Yeltsin said in a statement carried by the In-ter-fax news agency. "Our best answer to the extremists' designs would be to vote on June 16 for civic peace, for stability, for Russia's future."
He lashed out at the "brutal and barbaric action" and promised to punish the offenders.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which ripped through a car one-third full of passengers.
The injured included a 4-year-old boy traveling with his father.
Seven badly burned victims were in serious condition in a Moscow hospital Wednesday.