A Russian general was killed by a car bomb in Moscow on Monday, the latest in a growing list of military officials and other pro-war figures to be assassinated since the start of the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian military intelligence has claimed responsibility for a number of the attacks.
Here are details of the most prominent cases.
December 22, 2025 – Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov is killed by a bomb that explodes under his Kia Sorento in southern Moscow. Sarvarov was head of the Russian General Staff’s army operational training directorate. Russian investigators say they suspect the involvement of Ukrainian special services. There is no immediate comment from Kyiv on the killing.
April 25, 2025 – Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, 59, is killed by a car bomb near Moscow. Moskalik was deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff.
December 17, 2024 – Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, is killed outside a Moscow apartment building along with his assistant when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter goes off.
November 13, 2024 – A bomb planted under a car kills a Russian serviceman in Sevastopol in Russia-annexed Crimea. A Ukrainian security source names him as Valery Trankovsky, a Russian naval captain whom Kyiv accused of war crimes for ordering missile strikes on civilian targets.
October 4, 2024 – Andrei Korotkiy, an employee at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine is killed in a car bomb attack. Ukrainian military intelligence calls him a collaborator and a war criminal.
December 6, 2023 – Illia Kyva, a former Ukrainian lawmaker regarded by Kyiv as a traitor, is shot dead near Moscow.
July 11, 2023 – Russian military officer Stanislav Rzhitsky, who had commanded a submarine in the Black Sea and appeared on a Ukrainian blacklist of alleged war criminals, is shot dead while out on a morning run in the southern city of Krasnodar.
April 2, 2023 – Vladen Tatarsky, a pro-war Russian military blogger, is killed by a bomb concealed in a statuette presented to him by a woman in a St Petersburg cafe.
August 20, 2022 – Darya Dugina, the daughter of a pro-war nationalist figure, is killed by a car bomb in the Moscow region.
(With inputs from Reuters)
Zubair Amin is a Senior Journalist at NewsX with over seven years of experience in reporting and editorial work. He has written for leading national and international publications, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Article 14, Mongabay, News9, among others. His primary focus is on international affairs, with a strong interest in US politics and policy. He also writes on West Asia, Indian polity, and constitutional issues. Zubair tweets at zubaiyr.amin
