A senior Russian general was killed in Moscow on Monday when a bomb planted under his car exploded, investigators said, making it the third general killed by a car bomb in the last year.
The attack comes almost exactly 12 months after another top Russian general was killed by an explosive device in Moscow in an attack claimed by Ukraine’s domestic security agency, the SBU. In April another Russian general was killed in a car bomb near Moscow.
Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, who headed the army’s Directorate for Operational Training, died as a result of his injuries, Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Images shared by the investigators showed a white car in a Moscow parking lot that had sustained heavy damage, with large sections of the vehicle’s external body missing, the driver’s seat stained in blood, and debris strewn on the surrounding ground. Photographs captured by the Associated Press showed heavily armed law enforcement working at the scene behind police tape.
The Investigative Committee said Sarvarov had taken part in the war in Ukraine, without offering further details. According to the government-owned Tass news agency, Sarvarov’s military career included stints in Syria in 2015-2016 and fighting insurgents in Chechnya in the 1990s. The agency reported that the 56-year-old was promoted to his most recent role in 2016.
On Monday, prosecutors opened a criminal investigation and said they were examining the scene for forensic evidence.
“The investigation is considering various versions of the murder. One of them involves the possible organization of the crime by Ukrainian special services,” said Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee.
A spokesperson for the SBU wasn’t immediately available for comment Monday morning. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the GUR, did not respond to a request for comment.
Sarvarov’s death comes a year after a similar explosion in the Russian capital targeted Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, a high-ranking military official who was killed when an explosive device attached to a scooter detonated as he exited a residential building. The SBU was responsible for the attack, according to an agency official who spoke at the time on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
In April, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik diedwhen a car he was walking past in a Moscow suburb exploded. Russian investigators later said he had been under surveillance before the attacks and they accused Ukrainian secret services of involvement.
Negotiations over a U.S.-sponsored peace proposal continued over the weekend, with U.S., Ukrainian and European officials meeting in Florida. Washington’s special envoy to the talks Steve Witkoff and the head of Kyiv‘s delegation Rustem Umerov issued joint statements calling the negotiations “productive and constructive.”
“Particular attention was given to discussing timelines and the sequencing of next steps,” the statement said.
Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a key figure in talks, was also in Miami and met separately with Witkoff, who later said “Russia remains fully committed to achieving peace in Ukraine.”
However, Yury Ushakov, a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that most of the proposals were “rather unconstructive” and would most likely be rejected, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Russian forces continued their offensive along the front line in eastern Ukraine. On Sunday, Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on social media that Russian troops had “forcibly detained and deported about 50 Ukrainian citizens” from Hrabovske, a village near the Russian border in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy.
Lubinets said he had written to Russia’s commissioner for human rights to demand their release, but did not provide further details. Russian officials did not respond to the charges.
“With such medieval raids, Putin’s Russia shows it is no different from terrorist groups like ISIS, Boko Haram, or Hamas,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X on Sunday.
Anastacia Galouchka contributed to this report.
The post Car bomb in Moscow kills senior Russian general in latest targeted killing appeared first on Washington Post.
