Car bomb kills senior Russian general near Moscow

A home-made explosive device blows up in a parked car, killing Lieutenant-General Yaroslav Moskalik, authorities say.

A senior Russian general has been killed after a home-made explosive device ripped through a parked car in the town of Balashikha, east of Moscow, according to the Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes in the country.

Authorities named Lieutenant-General Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the main operational directorate of the military’s General Staff, as the victim of Friday’s attack, which appeared to be similar to previous attacks on Russians linked to Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine.

“According to available data, the explosion occurred as a result of the detonation of a homemade explosive device filled with destructive elements,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement on Friday.

Investigators added that they had opened a probe into the deadly attack after a Volkswagen Golf blew up outside a block of flats in Balashikha. The statement did not say who might be behind the incident.

Second victim reported

Russia’s Kommersant newspaper said a second person was also killed.

Images from the scene posted on social media showed a blaze that gutted a car.

The Agentstvo investigative news site, citing leaked information, said Moskalik lived in Balashikha, but the Volkswagen was not registered to him.

Security camera footage posted by the Izvestia newspaper showed a massive explosion, sending fragments flying into the air. The blast happens just as someone can be seen walking towards the car.

According to the Kremlin website, Moskalik was a Russian military representative at the “Normandy Format” talks on Ukraine in 2015, amid the conflict between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made him lieutenant-general in 2021.

Previous deadly attacks on Russians linked to the war in Ukraine include the August 2022 car bombing of nationalist Darya Dugina, and an explosion in a Saint Petersburg cafe in April 2023 that killed high-profile military correspondent Maxim Fomin, known as Vladlen Tatarsky.

Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian military’s chemical weapons unit, was killed by a bomb planted in a scooter in Moscow in December, the boldest assassination claimed by Kyiv since the start of the conflict.

After Kirillov’s killing, Putin made a rare admission of failings by his powerful security agencies, saying: “We must not allow such very serious blunders to happen.”

Source

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Al Jazeera and news agencies