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A car bomb killed a Russian general Monday, the third such killing of a senior Army officer in a year. Investigators said Ukraine could be behind the attack.
Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, died of his wounds, said Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman for the Russian Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigative agency.
This undated image provided by the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry on Monday, December 22, 2025 shows Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
Press service of the Russian Defense Ministry via AP
“Investigators are pursuing many leads regarding the murder. One of them is that the crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services,” Petrenko said.
This image taken from video provided by the Moscow Investigative Committee on Monday, December 22, 2025 shows the scene where Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, was killed by an explosive device placed under his car in Moscow.
Moscow Investigative Commission via AP
Since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine almost four years ago, Russian authorities have blamed Ukraine for several assassinations of military officers and public figures in Russia. Ukraine claimed responsibility for some of them. He has not yet commented on Monday’s death.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the president Vladimir Putin had been immediately informed of Sarvarov’s murder.
The Defense Ministry said Sarvarov previously fought in Chechnya and took part in Moscow’s military campaign in Syria.
A little over a year ago, Lt.-Gen. Igor Kirillovhead of the military nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his building. Kirillov’s assistant also died. Ukrainian security services claimed responsibility for the attack.
An Uzbek man was quickly arrested and charged with Kirillov’s murder on behalf of Ukrainian security services.
Putin called Kirillov’s assassination a “major mistake” by Russia’s security agencies, stressing that they should learn from it and improve their effectiveness.
In April, another senior Russian army officer, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the General Staff’s main operational department, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car parked near his apartment building just outside Moscow. The alleged perpetrator was quickly arrested.
A few days after the assassination of Moskalik, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said he had received a report from the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence services about the “liquidation” of senior Russian military officials, adding that “justice inevitably comes,” although he did not mention Moskalik by name.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
