{"id":4558,"date":"2025-04-25T12:20:32","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T12:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/25\/russian-general-killed-by-car-bomb-just-outside-moscow-murder-probe-launched\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T12:20:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T12:20:33","slug":"russian-general-killed-by-car-bomb-just-outside-moscow-murder-probe-launched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/25\/russian-general-killed-by-car-bomb-just-outside-moscow-murder-probe-launched\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian general killed by car bomb just outside Moscow; murder probe launched"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An explosive device ripped through a parked car near Moscow on Friday killing a senior Russian general, the Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes said, adding it had launched a murder probe.<\/p>\n

Authorities identified the victim as General-lieutenant Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the main operational directorate of the military’s General Staff.<\/p>\n

Investigators said they had opened a probe into murder and smuggling explosives after the Volkswagen Golf blew up outside a block of flats in the town of Balashikha, east of Moscow.<\/p>\n

Images from the scene posted on social media showed a blaze that gutted a car. The deadly attack comes four months after another Russian general was killed<\/a><\/span> along with his deputy in an explosion in Moscow.<\/p>\n

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In this handout photo released by OSTOROZHNO NOVOSTI, flames and smoke rise from the scene where Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik was killed by an explosive device placed in a car in Balashikha, just outside Moscow, Russia, on Friday, April 25, 2025.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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OSTOROZHNO NOVOSTI via AP<\/p>\n

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The Agentstvo investigative news site, citing leaked information, said Moskalik lived in Balashikha, but the Volkswagen was not registered to him.<\/p>\n

Security camera footage posted by the Izvestia newspaper showed a massive explosion, sending fragments flying into the air. The blast happens just as someone can be seen walking towards the car.<\/p>\n

The “blast was caused by the triggering of an improvised explosive device” packed with metal fragments designed to cause maximum harm, investigators said.<\/p>\n

According to the Kremlin website, Moskalik was a Russian military representative at the “Normandy format” talks on Ukraine in 2015, amid the conflict between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists.<\/p>\n

Russian President Vladimir Putin made him general-lieutenant in 2021.<\/p>\n

Friday’s bombing came just as U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff <\/a><\/span>was expected to meet with Putin in Moscow to discuss a U.S.-brokered peace plan for Ukraine. <\/p>\n

The blast appeared to be similar to previous attacks on Russians linked to Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Kyiv had in some cases claimed responsibility but has not commented on Friday’s attack.<\/p>\n

These include the August 2022 car bombing of nationalist Darya Dugina<\/a><\/span> and an explosion in a Saint Petersburg cafe in April 2023 that killed high-profile military correspondent Maxim Fomin<\/a><\/span>, known as Vladlen Tatarsky. A Russian woman, who said she presented the figurine on orders of a contact in Ukraine,\u00a0was convicted<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and sentenced to 27 years in prison.<\/p>\n

In December 2023, Illia Kiva, a former pro-Moscow Ukrainian lawmaker who fled to Russia,\u00a0was shot and killed<\/a><\/span>\u00a0near Moscow. The Ukrainian military intelligence lauded the killing, warning that other “traitors of Ukraine” would share the same fate.<\/p>\n

Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian military’s chemical weapons unit, was killed by a bomb planted<\/a><\/span> in a scooter in Moscow in December. Ukrainian security sources told CBS News the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) killed Kirillov in a special operation.<\/p>\n

After Kirillov’s killing, Putin made a rare admission of failings by his powerful security agencies, saying: “We must not allow such very serious blunders to happen.”<\/p>\n

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