Yaroslav Moskalik was walking past a parked car in the suburbs of Moscow when the fatal explosion occured.
Footage showed a powerful blast destroying a Volkswagen Golf at around 10.40am local time (7.40am GMT), which reportedly threw the Russian General several metres away from the scene.
Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for what appeared to be a deliberate attack.
Kommersant newspaper said a second person was also killed in the attack, some 10 miles from Moscow.
But the incident will not come as a shock to the Russian leadership. Moskalik was just the latest in a string of top Russian military figures to have been targeted in lethal assassinations.
While Kyiv has not commented, the attack bears the hallmarks of similar assassinations on Russian figures linked to its offensive on Ukraine – some of which Ukraine’s secret services have claimed responsibility for.
Kyiv has also orchestrated attacks on its former officials who have defected to Russia since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and started backing armed separatists in the east.
What follows is a list of some of the most high-profile attacks through the three-year offensive.
Moskalik was just the latest in a string of top Russian military figures to have been targeted in lethal assassinations
While Kyiv has not commented, the attack bears the hallmarks of similar assassinations on Russian figures linked to its offensive on Ukraine – some of which Ukraine’s secret services have claimed responsibility for
Yaroslav Moskalik
Earlier today Russia’s Investigative Committee confirmed that Lieutenant General Moskalik had been killed in an explosion near Moscow.
Moskalik, who represented Russia’s General Staff in talks with Ukraine in Paris in 2015, was walking past the parked Volkswagen Golf when a bomb detonated remotely.
Images from the scene of the explosion posted on social media showed a blaze that had gutted a car parked near blocks of flats in the town east of Moscow.
Security camera footage posted by the Izvestia newspaper showed a massive explosion from a parked car, sending fragments flying into the air.
The blast happens just as someone can be seen walking towards the car.
The TASS state news agency reported, citing unnamed law enforcement officers, that ‘the cause of the blast was an improvised explosive device’ and that fragments found at the scene had been sent for testing.
It reported that the explosive device was packed with metal fragments designed to cause maximum harm.
‘According to emergency response officials, the device had the explosive power of more than 300 grams of TNT,’ TASS reported.
Russian Telegram channel Mash, which has purported links to law enforcement, wrote that the explosion had killed a senior military figure from the main operational directorate of Russia’s General Staff.
Yaroslav Moskalik, pictured in 2021, was reported to have died in the explosion on Friday
The moment of the explosion said to have killed Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces
Russian media circulated the purported scene of the explosion in Moscow region on Friday
Darya Dugina
It was one of the first high-profile assassinations of a well-known figure on Russian soil following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Dugina, 29, was killed outside Moscow when a bomb attached to the car she was driving detonated. Many believe her father was the intended assassination target.
Investigators confirmed an explosive device had been planted underneath her Toyota Land Cruiser and activated remotely.
Russian media reports said the bomb had the strength of between 400 and 800 grams of TNT.
Dugina was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, a leading Russian ultranationalist philosopher who is a close ally and supporter of Putin.
Both were travelling along the motorway when the explosion occurred, but Dugin was in a separate vehicle.
Russia blamed the attack on Ukraine, which never claimed or denied it.
Darya and Alexander Dugin
The charred jeep where Darya Dugina, 30, was killed by an explosion on 20 August
Darya Dugina died in the car explosion late on 20 August 2022 in Moscow region
Vladlen Tatarsky
In April 2023, pro-Kremlin military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky – real name Maxim Fomin – was killed when a statuette he was handed exploded at a cafe in Saint Petersburg.
Tatarsky – real name Maxim Fomin – was targeted at a meet-and-greet event when the gift seemingly given to him exploded, injuring several others present.
Born in eastern Ukraine, Tatarsky was a convicted bank robber who escaped from prison to fight with Russian-backed separatists against Ukraine’s armed forces when the conflict first broke out in 2014.
He subsequently defected to Russia and advocated for a much more aggressive military campaign against Ukraine, becoming a leading blogger.
Russia sentenced a 26-year-old woman, Darya Trepova, to 27 years in prison for the killing – the harshest sentence for a woman in Russian history – accusing her of acting on Kyiv’s orders.
Her supporters said she was tricked by Ukrainian security services into believing she was handing him a secret recording device.
But the Russian denied purposefully killing the pro-Kremlin media personality, telling the court at her sentencing that her ‘conscience was clear’.
She instead argued that she was set up by contacts in Ukraine and thought the statue simply concealed a listening device, not a bomb.
While refusing to officially claim responsibility, the head of Ukraine’s SBU security service this year said the statuette had been loaded with 400 grammes (14 ounces) of explosives.
Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, is seen moments before the explosion with the small statue at a St. Petersburg cafe
The moment of the explosion that killed Kremlin top war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky and wounded dozens of people was captured on CCTV outside the cafe
Hardline military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky died when a miniature statue handed to him as a gift by Darya Trepova (pictured in court) exploded in a Saint Petersburg cafe in April 2023
General Igor Kirillov
A bomb attached to a scooter outside a Moscow apartment block killed General Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian army’s chemical weapons division, and his assistant in December 2024.
Kirillov, 54, had been sanctioned by Britain over the alleged use of chemical weapons in Ukraine.
The bombing – claimed by the Ukrainian security services – came a day after Kyiv had accused Kirillov of overseeing the widespread use of banned chemical weapons against its troops in the conflict zone.
Charging him in absentia with war crimes, the SBU said he was responsible for more than 4,800 documented cases of Russian troops using chemical munitions since the start of the full-scale war.
An SBU source told AFP it was behind the early morning explosion, calling it a ‘special operation’ and branding Kirillov a ‘war criminal’.
He is believed to be the most senior military officer to be assassinated since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Two days after Kirillov was killed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his powerful security agencies had committed ‘very serious blunders’ over the spate of attacks on Russian military figures.
Kirillov had served as the Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defence Troops since 2017
Bodies are seen at the blast scene, which killed the commander of Russian armed forces’ chemical, biological and radiation defence troops, Igor Kirillov, and his assistant
Attempt on Zakhar Prilepin
Pro-Kremlin writer and nationalist Zakhar Prilepin was seriously wounded in a May 2023 car explosion that killed another person near the city of Nizhny Novgorod.
Prilepin, one of Russia’s best-known novelists, had fought alongside pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine in 2014, and had become a vocal supporter of the 2022 full-scale offensive.
Prosecutors said the bombing was conducted at the direction of Ukraine’s security services.
The bomb was under the passenger seat, and killed his friend Alexander Shubin, he wrote in a Telegram post.
He said he only survived because he was driving.
‘You will not intimidate anyone,’ he warned those behind the attack.
‘Thanks to everyone who prayed, because it should have been impossible to survive such an explosion,’ he added.
The convicted defendant, Alexander Permyakov, is from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and once fought with the Russian-backed separatists there.
Ukraine called him a ‘real war criminal’ and revelled in the attack, though it did not claim responsibility.
Pro-Kremlin writer and nationalist Zakhar Prilepin was seriously wounded in a May 2023 car explosion
Prosecutors said the bombing was conducted at the direction of Ukraine’s security services
The bomb was under the passenger seat, and killed his friend Alexander Shubin
Oleg Popov
The murder of Kyva came days before a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian politician branded a war criminal by Kyiv was targeted in a car bombing in occupied Luhansk.
Oleg Popov, who held the position of Deputy of the People’s Council of the Luhansk People’s Republic, died instantly when his car erupted into flames amid an explosion near the city’s Avangard stadium.
The Kyiv Post reported that the ‘special operation’ was organised by the SBU with the report later corroborated by an SBU source who spoke to Ukraine’s Pravda outlet.
Popov, 51, was described as a ‘quite legitimate target, because before becoming a deputy he managed many Russian volunteer battalions, led illegal armed formations, and killed Ukrainians’.
‘Undermining the leader is the best advertisement for the effectiveness of this committee’s work,’ the source said.
The assassination of Popov was the second attempt on his life.
The Russian politician and former military man narrowly survived the first attack in September 2022, but Russian media reported he had died as a result of a contract killing.
He disappeared from the public eye before silently returning to work in February 2023 – a move that Ukrainian media put down to a Russian ‘operational game’.
Popov secured a high-ranking position in the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic after years of operating in the region.
He was responsible for arming and leading separatist forces who grabbed territory in Luhansk in 2014.
Local MP Oleg Popov, 51, was killed in a car bombing on 6 December, 2023 in occupied Luhansk city
Image shows the outcome of a fatal car bombing in Luhansk, near the stadium, on December 6
Stanislav Rzhitsky
A Russian submarine captain was shot dead while out for a jog in a revenge hit in July 2023.
Stanislav Rzhitsky, 42, was seen jogging along a river in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar while being followed by a mystery cyclist in leaked security footage.
Minutes later, he was cut down by seven bullets.
Ukrainian-born judo teacher Sergei Denisenko, 64, confessed to killing the submarine captain on the ‘instructions’ of Ukrainian intelligence after he was arrested, according to claims by Russian media.
He was arrested after Russian authorities stormed his flat and reportedly found a pistol and a silencer that was believed to be the murder weapon.
He had prepared for the mission since December and was detained before he was due to fly via Turkey to Switzerland – where he has Ukrainian refugee status.
It was later reported that Denisenko managed to track down Rzhitsky via the Strava app – a social fitness site where users can upload their recorded workouts along with GPS-tracking data.
Rzhitsky routinely ran a similar route at a similar time, allowing the assassin to coordinate the hit.
Ukraine’s GUR confirmed Rzhitsky was assassinated and published details of his killing on the website, but did not say whether Denisenko had been hired to pull the trigger.
Rzhitsky was the deputy head of the Russian military mobilisation office in Krasnodar and had previously commanded the ‘Krasnodar’ submarine in the Black Sea.
The hit on him was planned as a revenge attack after the Krasnodar submarine authored a fatal missile strike that killed some 23 people in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia.
But it was later revealed Rzhitsky had retired from active military duty in 2021, months before the submarine launched the missile strike.
Ukrainian-born judo teacher Sergei Denisenko (pictured), 64, confessed to killing the submarine captain on the ‘instructions’ of Ukrainian intelligence, according to Russian media
Stanislav Rzhitsky (pictured), 42, was seen jogging while being followed by a cyclist in Krasnodar, Russia, just minutes before he died on the spot after being shot up to seven times
Nikita Klenkov
Nikita Klenkov was believed to have been a top Russian GRU military intelligence officer.
He was shot dead in the village of Melenki near the Russian capital days after he had returned to Moscow from the Ukrainian frontline in October.
The 44-year-old was killed instantly when an unknown assailant fired three shots from another car through the window of the serviceman’s vehicle as he trundled past.
Local media claimed law enforcement sources believed the killer had knowledge of Klenkov’s movements and had been lying in wait for him to drive past.
Images from the scene showed how Klenkov’s white SUV had continued rolling after he was assassinated and ploughed into an unsuspecting civilian’s garden before slamming into a fence.
Klenkov was the deputy commander of a special forces unit, according to independent Russian publication Novaya Gazeta.
The site of Klenkov’s murder is located less than 20 minutes’ drive from the Special Operations Training Centre where he reportedly worked to train Russian operators ahead of their deployment to Ukraine.
Investigators later discovered a discarded gun in the foliage near to the site of the shooting that was believed to be the murder weapon.
Klenkov’s murder remains unsolved.
A Russian GRU agent, named locally as Nikita Klenkov, was assassinated in his car just days after returning from Ukraine’s frontlines
Pictured: The weapon – a gun – was found in grass near the site of the shooting
Sergey Yevsyukov
The death of Sergey Yevsyukov was undoubtedly welcomed by countless Ukrainian families.
The 49-year-old Russian military officer had developed particular notoriety for heading the infamous Olenivka prison – a facility in the occupied Donetsk region where Russian troops are alleged to have interrogated and tortured Ukrainian PoWs.
He was blown apart in a brutal car bombing earlier this month, while his wife was reportedly rushed to hospital and left in a critical condition before undergoing a leg amputation.
The injuries were confirmed by the adviser to the Russian-installed mayor of Mariupol.
The warden’s battered Toyota Land Cruiser was seen undergoing inspections by investigators after Yevsyukov’s bloodied corpse and his severely injured wife were pulled free by emergency services.
Olenivka was one of the main facilities in occupied Ukraine used to house Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in the summer of 2022 after their months-long holdout at the Azovstal steel plant following the siege of Mariupol.
Ukrainians who spent time in Olenivka before being returned home in prisoner exchanges have told tales of starvation and heinous torture at the jail.
In July 2022, a part of the barracks at Olenivka was devastated by a large explosion that killed dozens and injured more than 100 Ukrainian PoWs held there during Yevsyukov’s tenure as chief warden.
Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the destruction of Olenivka, a case which remains unsolved.
But a UN report issued in July 2023 – almost one year on from the horrific incident – said that Russian authorities had consistently blocked attempts by various international bodies to investigate the blast site at Olenivka.
It also dismissed Russian claims that the prison was destroyed by a Ukrainian missile strike, claiming that the scale of the damage and the images from the scene were not consistent with such weaponry.
Sergey Yevsyukov, 49, the ex-head of the Russian-run penal colony in Olenivka
Sergey Yevsyukov, 49, the ex-head of the Russian-run penal colony in Olenivka, was killed in Donetsk
Yevsyukov was killed in Donetsk when his Toyota Land Cruiser was blown up by a bomb which also tore the leg off his wife in a suspected Ukrainian revenge attack
Illya Kyva
Pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician Illya Kyva was shot dead in a Moscow suburb in December 2023, in a killing claimed by Ukraine.
Kyva was a former Ukrainian lawmaker who defected when Russia launched its military offensive.
He was gunned down in December 2023 as he went for a walk in a supposedly safe location at a country club near Moscow.
Images from the scene showed his body lying in the snow and the weapons supposedly used to ‘liquidate’ him hanging on a tree nearby.
A video clip also emerged that purported to show Kyva’s assassin lying in wait.
Ukraine’s SBU secret service made clear the images and footage were deliberately released as a warning to other Ukrainians collaborating with Vladimir Putin’s invading forces.
‘This is a signal to all traitors and war criminals who have gone over to the enemy’s side,’ a Ukrainian source told media.
‘Remember, Russia will not protect you… Death is the only prospect that awaits the enemies of Ukraine.’
Exiled pro-Putin former Ukrainian MP, Ilya Kyva, was shot dead in Russia in December 2023. He is pictured here with his famly in this undated photo
A suspected assassin is seen stalking through a wooded area near a country club in Moscow close to the murder scene of a former Ukrainian lawmaker who defected to Russia
This followed a statement by SBU spokesman Andriy Yusov who told Ukrainian TV: ‘We can confirm Kyva is no more. This fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine and puppets of Putin’s regime.’
Kyva was a former policeman and Ukrainian government official, having led the Socialist party in the Ukrainian parliament from 2017-2019.
In 2019 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Ukrainian presidency, but then turned to Russia. He asked Putin for political asylum and a Russian passport.
In a failed assassination attempt, former Ukrainian security agent Vasily Prozorov, who defected to Moscow, survived a bomb detonation in his car in a residential corner of Moscow in April 2024.
