LAST UPDATE | 22 Dec 2025

A SENIOR RUSSIAN general has been killed by a car bomb in southern Moscow, 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.

Sarvarov, 56, was the head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff. He was killed when the bomb, which had been placed under his parked car, detonated in a residential quarter of southern Moscow.

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been informed about the killing.

Images and footage from the scene depict 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, told AFP.

“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.

This image taken from video provided by Investigative Committee of Moscow shows the scene where Fanil Sarvarov was killed. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Investigators said the possibility that the attack was “linked” to “Ukrainian special forces” was among the lines of inquiry.

Ukraine has not commented on the incident. 

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a number of Russian military officials and pro-Kremlin personalities have been killed 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 defence 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.

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

Talks intensify

The car bomb attack comes after three days of talks in Miami aimed at ending the war. Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov and US special envoy Steve Witkoff hailed “progress” in the negotiations on Sunday.

Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev also met with the US team, which included Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

Witkoff had also called those meetings “productive and constructive.”

An initial 28-point plan to end the war put forward by US President Donald Trump adhered to Moscow’s core demands, triggering panic in Kyiv and European capitals.

Ukraine and its allies have since been working to refine the plan, though Kyiv says it is still being asked to make massive concessions, such as giving up the entire eastern Donbas region to Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed scepticism over whether Russia really wants to end the war, which has killed tens of thousands and decimated eastern and southern Ukraine.

The Kremlin today denied that it wanted to recreate the Soviet Union, seize the whole of Ukraine and more land in eastern Europe after Reuters reported that US intelligence had concluded Putin seeks much more than just control over eastern Ukraine.

With reporting from © AFP 2025