Moscow Car Blast Kills Russian General 

An investigator works at the scene where Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Russian General Staff's army operational training directorate, was reportedly killed in a car bomb in Moscow, Russia, December 22, 2025. (Russia's Investigative Committee/Handout via Reuters)

A senior Russian general was killed in southern Moscow on Monday after an explosive device placed under his car went off, investigators said in a statement.

Russia's Investigative Committee, which examines major crimes, said it had opened a probe into the "murder" of Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, head of the training department within the General Staff.

The possibility that the attack was "linked" to "Ukrainian special forces" was among the lines of inquiry, it said.

Since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv has been blamed for several attacks targeting Russian military officials and pro-Kremlin personalities in Russia and in Russian-controlled Ukrainian regions.

General Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy of the General Staff, was killed in a car blast near Moscow in April.

In December 2024, Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian radiological, chemical and biological defense forces, was killed when a booby-trapped electric scooter exploded in Moscow, an attack claimed by Ukraine's SBU security service.

A Russian military blogger, Maxim Fomin, was killed when a statuette exploded in a Saint Petersburg cafe in April 2023.

And in August 2022, a car bomb killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin.