Top Russian General on Ukraine's 'War Crime List' Assassinated in Moscow Car Bombing

Russian investigators are considering a link to Ukrainian military intelligence after a top Kremlin general was killed by a car bomb in Moscow on Monday morning. Getty Images Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, former commander of Russian forces in Syria and the head of operational training for the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, died in an explosion as he drove his car, a Kia Sorento, out of the car park of a residential bloc in Moscow on Monday morning. The visibly bloodied wreckage, which the Kremlin has said was destroyed by an explosive device under the vehicle, is being examined by investigators for forensic clues. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin was “immediately” made aware of the death of Lieutenant General Sarvarov. An investigation has been launched over the crimes of “murder committed in a socially dangerous manner” and the trafficking of explosives. Russia says its agencies are considering the hypothesis of an assassination “orchestrated” by Ukraine’s intelligence agencies. While Kyiv has not commented at the time of publication, its military intelligence directorate has executed, and claimed credit for, several assassinations against both Russians and Ukrainian-citizen “traitors” over the course of its war of defence so far, with car bombs a recurring feature. The blast took place around 0700 on Monday morning, and Lieutenant General Sarvarov was killed at the scene. He becomes one of the most senior Russian officers killed, presumably, in the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to Russian state media, the General had been awarded orders during his service in Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine, including the Order of Courage, the Suvorov Medal, and the Order of Merit to the Fatherland, first and second class. Russia also noted on Monday morning that Lieutenant General Sarvarov’s name and biography appeared on the Ukrainian ‘Peacemaker’ [Myrotvorets Center] website, a list of “traitors, militants, mercenaries, terrorists, Russian war criminals” for the benefit of “the Security Service of Ukraine”. A record apparently created in 2022 lists Sarvarov as a “Russian war criminal... Participant in the military attack of fascist Russia on Ukraine... Involved in the genocide of the Ukrainian people”. An update notes he has now been “liquidated”. Ukraine has long been pursuing a campaign of such “liquidations” against both the Russian and those of its own people it considers to have betrayed Kyiv, including residents of Russian-occupied areas who have collaborated with Moscow. As previously reported, senior officer General Yaroslav Moskalik was killed by a car bomb in April , Major General Mikhail Evgenievich Gudkov was killed by a missile strike in July , and Igor Kirillov was killed by an IED outside his apartment last December. Also, last December, Ukraine claimed the “liquidation” of a Russian missile scientist in Moscow by shooting, and the assassination by car bomb of a Ukrainian citizen, the prison governor in an occupied zone, who was accused of war crimes. As reported at the time: These assassinations are just the latest in a line of such...

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