Senior Russian General Killed in Moscow Car Bombing

The general headed training for the Russian general staff and is thought to have been one of the people responsible for giving orders leading to the harsh treatment of Ukrainian POWs, including the murders of some soldiers who surrendered. JL

Matthew Luxmoore reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, who headed the General Staff’s army operational training directorate, had just begun his commute to work at around 7 a.m. local time when a bomb attached to his Kia Sorento detonated. Sarvarov’s killing is the latest in a series of assassinations of members of Russia’s military command since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

A Russian general was killed when a bomb fitted to the underside of his vehicle exploded early Monday, Russia’s investigative committee said, an attack that Moscow said could have been planned by Ukraine.

Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, who headed the General Staff’s army operational training directorate, had just begun his commute to work at around 7 a.m. local time when a bomb attached to his Kia Sorento detonated, according to Russian media.

Sarvarov had driven several meters in the car park outside his housing block when the blast riddled his body with shrapnel.

Authorities said they were questioning witnesses and reviewing footage from cameras in the district of south Moscow where Sarvarov was killed.

Sarvarov, 56 years old, was a highly decorated officer who graduated from a tank command school in the waning years of the Soviet Union and served in the conflicts fueled by its collapse. He fought in Chechnya and in a brief war in North Ossetia in the 1990s, and later took part in Russia’s military intervention in Syria.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the incident as “a terrifying murder” and said Russia’s security services were working to identify the perpetrators. Russian investigators said Ukrainian special services might have been involved in the murder. Kyiv hasn’t commented on it.

But Sarvarov’s killing would be the latest in a series of apparent assassinations of members of Russia’s military command since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In December of last year, Ukraine’s SBU security service claimed responsibility for an attack that killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the commander of a Russian unit designed to protect troops from chemical, radiological and biological attack. Kirillov was killed when a scooter blew up beside him on the snowy streets of Moscow.

Ukraine is also suspected of being behind the assassinations of a top Russian missile scientist, a pro-Moscow former Ukrainian lawmaker and a prominent nationalist war blogger. In 2022, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Kyiv was responsible for the killing of Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent far-right Russian ideologue.

Kyiv has sought to use targeted attacks against Russian military commanders and prominent pro-war figures to gain an edge in war against a superior Russian military buoyed by greater reserves of manpower and equipment.

It has at times recruited people inside Russia who have shown a willingness to aid the Ukrainian cause, and given them detailed instructions on how to orchestrate attacks. One such case was a daring drone attack by the SBU in June that destroyed or damaged dozens of warplanes at four military airports deep inside Russia, in the biggest blow of the war against Moscow’s long-range bomber fleet.

Such attacks have been orchestrated not only by the SBU but also by Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR. On Monday, HUR posted a video purporting to show burning Russian jet fighters on the territory of a military airport. The agency said one of its agents had sneaked onto the air base in Lipetsk, in western Russia, overnight into Sunday and set ablaze an SU-30 and SU-27 jet.

HUR said the sabotage had caused $100 million in damages and rendered the two aircraft inoperable. It said its agent made it out of the airfield undetected and is now in Ukraine.