A car bomb killed a senior Russian General in southern Moscow on Monday morning, the latest high-profile army figure to be blown up in a blast that came just hours after Russian and Ukrainian delegates held separate talks in Miami on a plan to end the war.
Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, 56, head of the Russian General Staff’s training department, was killed when the bomb, which had been placed under his parked car, detonated in a residential quarter of southern Moscow.
“Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of inquiry regarding the murder. One of these is that the crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services,” said Svetlana Petrenko, the spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, the nation’s top criminal investigation agency.
Reporters at the scene saw a mangled white Kia SUV, its doors and back window blown out. The frame was twisted and charred from the blast.
The scene had been cordoned off by security forces, and investigators were sifting through the debris. Eyewitnesses reported a loud bang.
“We absolutely didn’t expect it. We thought we were safe, and then this happens right next to us,” local resident, Tatiana, 74 said.
“The windows rattled, you could tell it was an explosion,” said Grigory, 70, who also declined to give his surname.
“We need to treat it more calmly. It’s the cost of war,” he added.
Sarvarov fought in the Russian army’s campaigns in the North Caucasus, including Chechnya in the 1990s, according to his official biography on the defence ministry’s website.
He also commanded Russian forces in Syria in 2015-16.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been informed about Monday’s killing, which came after three days of talks in Miami as the United States intensifies its efforts to broker an end to the four-year war. AFP
Bombed...scene of the blast that killed a Russian army General.