A car bomb has killed a senior General Staff member, officials confirmed. The Investigative Committee reported that Russian general Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of operational training at the General Staff, was killed in a blast in Moscow on Monday morning.
According to the statement, an explosive device was planted beneath the vehicle he was traveling in and detonated in the southern part of the city. The attack also damaged several other vehicles and seriously injured Sarvarov’s driver, as media reports stated.
Russian officials said one line of investigation points to an assassination carried out by Ukrainian intelligence services. They noted that Kiev has previously used explosive devices in targeted killings of officials and public figures.
Last December, a bomb hidden in an e-scooter killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, commander of Russia’s Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces, and his aide, which investigators alleged was a Ukrainian plot.
Sarvarov, a career officer with combat experience gained during counterterrorism operations in southern Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was appointed in 2016 to lead the department responsible for training senior officers at staff exercises and other events. Prior to that, he was involved in the Russian deployment in Syria.