Russian general killed by car bomb just outside Moscow

Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was killed.

The burnt out remains of a car at the scene where Yaroslav Moskalik was killed by an explosive device (AP Photo)

A Russian general has been killed by a car bomb, Russia’s top criminal investigation agency has said, in the second such attack on a top Russian military officer in four months.

The Investigative Committee said that Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car in Balashikha just outside Moscow.

The committee’s spokeswoman, Svetlana Petrenko, said the explosive device was rigged with shrapnel. She said that investigators were at the scene.

Russian media ran videos of a vehicle burning in the courtyard of an apartment building.

Flames and smoke rise from the scene of the explosion (OSTOROZHNO NOVOSTI via AP)

The committee did not mention possible suspects, but Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declared without offering evidence that “there are reasons to believe that Ukrainian special services were involved in the killing”.

Ukrainian authorities did not comment on the attack.

“If the investigation confirms the Ukrainian trace in this case, this will once again demonstrate to the world community the barbaric and treacherous nature of the Kyiv regime, which is betting on an escalation of military confrontation with Russia and irresponsibly ignoring constructive proposals aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the conflict,” Ms Zakharova said.

The attack follows the killing of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who died on December 17 when a bomb hidden on an electric scooter parked outside his apartment building exploded as he left for his office.

Police and investigators at the scene where Lt Gen Yaroslav Moskalik was killed (AP Photo)

The Russian authorities blamed Ukraine for the killing of Lt Gen Kirillov and Ukraine’s security agency acknowledged that it was behind that attack.

Lt Gen Kirillov was the chief of Russia’s Radiation, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, the special troops tasked with protecting the military from the enemy’s use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and ensuring operations in a contaminated environment. His assistant also died in the attack.

Friday’s bombing came just as US President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss a US-brokered peace plan for Ukraine. The meeting is their fourth encounter since February.