This photo provided by Investigative Committee of Moscow on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, shows an investigator working at the scene where Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, was killed by an explosive device placed under his car in Moscow. (Investigative Committee of Moscow via AP)

Russian general killed in Moscow car bombing in apparent Ukrainian attack

Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov was head of army’s Operational Training Directorate; investigators say they’re looking if ‘crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services’

by · The Times of Israel

MOSCOW — A Russian general was killed Monday morning after an explosive device detonated underneath his car in Moscow, and investigators said Ukraine could be behind the attack, the third such killing of a senior military officer in the past year.

Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, died from his injuries, said Svetlana Petrenko, the spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, the nation’s top criminal investigation agency.

“Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of inquiry regarding the murder. One of these is that the crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services,” Petrenko said.

Ukrainian intelligence has been suspected of being behind several attacks on top Russian generals over the course of the nearly four-year old war sparked by Russia’s invasion.

Most recently, Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy in the Russian General Staff, was killed in a car bombing near Moscow in April of this year.

Just over a year ago, on December 17, 2024, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his apartment building. Kirillov’s assistant also died. Ukraine’s security service claimed responsibility for the attack.

This handout photo released by the Russian Investigative Committee on December 22, 2025, shows the car bomb site in southern Moscow. Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, head of the training department within the General Staff, was killed in Moscow on December 22, 2025 after an explosive device placed under his car went off, investigators said in a statement. (Handout / RUSSIAN INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE / AFP)

An Uzbek man was quickly arrested and charged with killing Kirillov on behalf of the Ukrainian security service.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described Kirillov’s killing as a “major blunder” by Russia’s security agencies, noting they should learn from it and improve their efficiency.

But in April. another senior Russian military officer, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car parked near to his apartment building just outside Moscow. A suspected perpetrator was quickly arrested.

Moscow also has blamed Ukraine for several bombings and other attacks in Russia.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.