A senior Russian military officer, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, has been killed in a car bombing in Moscow, authorities have confirmed.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said the 56-year-old, who headed the armed forces’ operational training department, died on Monday morning after an explosive device planted under his car detonated.
He succumbed to his injuries in hospital. Investigators have launched a probe into murder and illegal trafficking of explosives and have been dispatched to the scene, a car park near an apartment block in the south of the Russian capital.
Images from the site show a badly damaged white car with its doors blown out, surrounded by other vehicles.
The committee said one line of inquiry involves possible Ukrainian intelligence involvement, though Ukraine has not commented on the incident. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin was immediately informed of Sarvarov’s death.
Sarvarov was a veteran of several Russian military campaigns, including the Ossetian-Ingush conflict and the Chechen wars in the 1990s and early 2000s. He also led Russian operations in Syria between 2015 and 2016.
The attack comes amid a string of high-profile assassinations in Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Among previous targets was Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent nationalist and close Putin ally, killed in a suspected car bombing in 2022. Other military officials, including General Yaroslav Moskalik in April 2025 and General Igor Kirillov in December 2024, have also died in similar attacks. While Ukrainian sources have occasionally claimed responsibility, Ukraine does not officially acknowledge targeted operations inside Russia.
The killing of Sarvarov highlights ongoing security vulnerabilities in Moscow and the continuing shadow of clandestine operations linked to the conflict in Ukraine.
