On Friday, a superior Russian military commander was killed on Friday in a car explosion in a suburb of Moscow, the investigators said, the last in a series of deaths among the opponents of Ukraine in Russia.
The Russian Inquiry Committee, the equivalent of the country at the FBI, published a declaration Identify the officer As a lieutenant-general Yaroslav Moskalik, a senior figure in the Russian staff who was directly involved in planning operations. Investigators said they had opened a criminal investigation into the explosion, which had taken place in the city of Balashikha, a suburbs east of Moscow.
The explosion came while state press agencies reported that Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, was probably in Moscow. Witkoff was to carry out another series of highly publicized negotiations with President Vladimir V. Putin during the end of the war in Ukraine and restoring the bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States. Mr. Putin put aside Mr. Trump’s calls to rapid peace in Ukraine, and Russia air strikes on civilian targets seem to increase.
The video circulating on social networks and verified by the New York Times showed an exploding and firing car outside a building, sending a thick plume of smoke in the air. Other images verified by the Times have shown that people were rushing on the stage while the secondary explosions resounded in the distance.
Ukrainian authorities had no immediate comments when they were contacted about the murder.
In February, a prominent pro-Russian separatist figure from Ukraine, Armen Sarkisyan, was killed when a bomb exploded inside a closed residence in Moscow. Ukrainian officials did not comment on the explosion at the time.
At the end of December, a general in charge of the nuclear and chemical protection forces of the Russian army, Igor Kirillov, was killed by a bomb near the entrance to a residential building in Moscow. An official of the Ukraine Security Service, known as SBU, said at the time that Ukraine was responsible for the murder.
Maria Varenikova And Sanjana Varghese Contributed reports.
