Five minutes later, the third bomb exploded near another grocery store on 25 October Street, just a few hundred meters away from the headquarters of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

The TASS news agency reported on 10 January 1977 that the explosion was not of great force, "medical help was given to those suffering injury, and an investigation is being conducted".

[5] Only on 8 February 1979, after the trial and execution of the three convicted men, did a letter to Izvestia, the official newspaper of the Soviet government, indicate that the attacks had killed seven people[4] and injured 37.

[4] In November 1977, Stepan Zatikyan, a founding member of a splinter group of the National United Party, an underground Armenian nationalist organization, was arrested.

His accomplices, Zaven Bagdasaryan and Hakop Stepanyan, were also taken into custody[8] after an unsuccessful attempt to detonate a bomb at the Kursky Rail Terminal in Moscow.

[12]) In response Andrei Sakharov wrote an "Appeal to world community", in which he requested an impartial investigation and suggested that the bombings might have been arranged by the KGB itself to discredit the entire Soviet dissident movement.

[5] … I cannot rid myself of the hunch that the explosion in the Moscow underground and the tragic deaths of individuals are a new provocation on the part of the organs of repression, and the most dangerous of recent years.

It was rumored in the Center that, when the KGB and militia failed to track down those responsible, three other Armenian separatists had been selected as scapegoats in order to demonstrate that terrorists would always be caught and punished.

[16] On 30 January 1979, A. D. Sakharov wrote a letter to L. I. Brezhnev, about the trial of the three Armenian suspects:[6] There are strong grounds for fearing that a deliberate frame-up or a judicial mistake is taking place in this case.

I appeal to you to stop the death sentence being carried out on all the accused in this case, and to demand a new inquiry from the investigative and court organs.On 1 February 1979, the Moscow Helsinki Group made an official statement on the execution of Zatikyan and two unnamed individuals, stating, "The lack of transparency and the whole atmosphere of secrecy give reasons to doubt the validity of charges, objectivity and impartiality of the court".