A high-ranking Russian military officer, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, was killed in a car explosion in the Moscow suburb of Balashikha on Friday, police investigators confirmed.
“Preliminary findings indicate that the explosion, which occurred near an apartment block, was caused by an improvised explosive device filled with shrapnel,” said a spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, the agency handling major criminal cases. Forensic teams and detectives are currently examining the scene.
Authorities have launched both a murder investigation and a probe into the illegal possession and distribution of explosives.
Initial state media reports suggested a gas leak was to blame, but surveillance footage shared by pro-Kremlin outlets captured the moment a powerful blast erupted near a parked car as a pedestrian passed by.
Lieutenant General Moskalik, 59, served as deputy chief of the General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate—one of the Russian military’s most strategic departments, responsible for combat readiness and operational planning.
According to the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Mash, the car involved in the explosion had changed hands several times since January. The latest owner was reportedly a 40-year-old man originally from Sumy, a city in northeastern Ukraine. These claims have not been independently verified.
Moskalik’s killing adds to a growing list of assassination attempts and targeted attacks since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Military commanders, Kremlin allies in occupied Ukraine, and defectors have all been targets.
In a similar incident last December, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his assistant were killed when an explosive device attached to a scooter detonated as they exited a residential building—marking the highest-profile assassination of a Russian officer since the war began.
