A Russian general has been killed by a bomb detonating underneath his car in Moscow in what appears to be the latest example of Ukraine‘s “ruthless and ingenious” campaign behind enemy lines.
Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, 56, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, died from his injuries after a bomb exploded under his Kia Sorento on Monday morning.
“Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of enquiry 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.
Ukraine has not yet commented on the killing. However, it marks the third such assassination of a senior Russian military officer in a year.
Experts have told The i Paper how Ukraine has become equipped to carry out such major ambushes on Russian soil, adding that despite President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to protect the capital, “you can’t escape war”.
The latest in a series of high-profile attacks
Sarvarov fought in the Chechen wars in the 1990s and 2000s, and took part in Moscow’s military campaign in Syria around 2015.
Russia’s Investigative Committee released footage of the targeted vehicle after the attack, which showed blood sprayed across the driver’s seat and one of its doors blown off.
An investigator working at the scene where Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, was killed (Photo: Investigative Committee of Moscow via AP)John Foreman, a former British defence attaché to Moscow and Kyiv, told The i Paper: “It’s interesting that after four years, Ukraine is still having success. It also shows how ruthless and ingenious the Ukrainians have become.”
The last major attack on a senior Russian military officer occurred in April, when Lt Gen Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car parked near to his apartment building just outside Moscow.
It came after Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter, also positioned outside his apartment block, in December last year.
Ukraine’s security service claimed responsibility for the attack, which also killed Kirillov’s assistant. An Uzbek man was quickly arrested and charged for the attack on behalf of the security service.
The scene of the explosion in southern Moscow, Russia (Photo: Moscow Investigative Committee/Anadolu via Getty Images)Putin described Kirillov’s killing as a “major blunder” by Russia’s security agencies, saying they should learn from it and improve their efficiency.
Perhaps the most famous of Ukraine’s attacks deep inside enemy lines was Operation Spiderweb, a co-ordinated drone strike on five Russian air bases, which targeted Moscow’s strategic cruise missile carriers.
How are such strikes carried out?
Despite Kyiv not formally commenting on the most recent bombing, the unofficial Ukrainian database of war criminals, Myrotvorets, updated its entry on Sarvarov to say he had been “liquidated”.
Oleg Ignatov, a senior Russia analyst for International Crisis Group, told The i Paper: “There are a lot of stories like this, but there are few that are as successful. Russian intelligence routinely collects info on attempts to kill somebody.”
Despite the efforts of Russians, Ignatov said the war had shown Ukrainians generally being more efficient than their foes at conducting attacks deep behind enemy lines.
The apartment block in Moscow where a bomb killed senior Russian military official Igor Kirillov last December (Photo: Dmitry Serebryakov/AP)He said: “There are a lot of Ukrainians who live in Russian-occupied territory. They use them as agents.
“It is easy to use networks like Telegram for example. That’s why Russians try to limit different online messengers and social networks.”
Foreman said Ukrainians also appeared to have better equipped counter-intelligence operations, capable of thwarting attacks on high-profile individuals before they were carried out.
He added: “It is generally harder for Russians to pass as Ukrainians than the other way round. Most Ukrainians speak Russian; not many Russians speak Ukrainian.”
‘Mud in the eye’ of Putin
Interfax news agency quoted the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Putin had been instantly informed of the attack on Sarvarov.
While the Russian President has since 2022 attempted to keep the reality of the war away from the capital, Ignatov said: “You can’t escape war.”
Another car bomb in August 2022 killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of the pro-war nationalist figure Alexander Dugin, in an attack believed to have been targeting him. This was followed by a former Ukrainian lawmaker, described as a traitor by Kyiv, being shot dead in December 2023.
A café in St Petersburg also saw pro-war Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky being assassinated by a bomb concealed in a statuette in April 2023.
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Foreman said: “It’s a psychological message being sent to the Russian military, government and citizens, as seen by the bomb placed inside the trophy given to that reporter. It’s very ingenious.
“It obviously causes a lot of fear. They have got an active service unit preying around Moscow blowing up Russians.”
The former defence attaché said the failure by the FSB, Russia’s principal security agency, to thwart such attacks also detracted from its own image and made the service appear “incompetent”.
He added that, ironically, Saturday was a professional holiday for employees of the agency in Russia, during which Putin commended officers for their service in maintaining the country’s safety.
“On 20 December, Putin gave a message about how the agency is keeping Russian people safe, with the service using an image of a shield and sword. Two days later, another general is blown up. There’s certainly mud in the eye of Putin.
“Russia often underestimates Ukrainians, and I think this is another example of that.”
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