A Russian general was killed after a bomb was planted under his car in southern Moscow.
Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov was the the head of the Russian general Staff’s army operational training directorate.
According to Svetlana Petrenko, spokesperson for the Russian Investigative Committee, an explosive device was planted under the general’s Kia Sorento car on Yasenevaya Street.
A Russian general was killed Monday morning after an explosive device detonated underneath his car in southern Moscow, investigators said. pic.twitter.com/K9wY4HlW88
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 22, 2025
Some reports say that the bomb detonated after the car had started moving several meters.
Shrapnel damage from the explosion damaged at least seven nearby cars.
Russian investigators say that they are exploring multiple probable angles of the killing, including the involvement of Ukrainian special services.
Kyiv has not yet commented on the killing.
Security services in Russia have reported the murder to President Vladimir Putin.
Fanil Sarvarov is not the first Russian military leader to die in an explosion.
On April 25, 2025, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, 59, was killed by a car bomb near Moscow. Moskalik was deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff.
In December 2024, Igor Kirillov, chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside a Moscow apartment building along with his assistant when a bomb hidden inside an electric scooter went off.
On November 13, 2024, a car bomb killed a Russian serviceman in Sevastopol in Russian-annexed Crimea. Ukraine named the man as Valery Trankovsky, a naval captain.
A Russian military blogger, Maxim Fomin, was killed after 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.
