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MOSCOW, April 25 ( Reuters ) – A senior Russian military officer was killed in a car bombing in the town of Balashikha, east of Moscow, on Friday, Russia’s Investigative Commission said.
The officer was Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the Main Operational Department of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. The Investigative Commission opened a criminal investigation into the incident.
According to the available data, the explosion was caused by the detonation of an improvised explosive device packed with explosive elements, the Investigative Commission said in a statement.
The statement did not specify who might be behind the incident. Several high-ranking Russian military officers have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the war, which Moscow blames on Kyiv.
The Russian media outlet Baza, which has sources in law enforcement, reported that the bomb in the parked car was detonated remotely as an officer who lived in the area was walking by.
The Izvestia newspaper published a video showing a man approaching a row of parked cars near a residential complex, followed by an explosion that scattered the vehicle debris several metres into the air.
According to the Kommersant newspaper, another person was killed in the explosion.
Moskalik, who held the rank of major general, participated in several high-level Russian delegations, according to the Ministry of Defence bulletins and media reports.
In October 2015, he joined a Russian delegation at a meeting of the Normandy Four, which included representatives from Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France. The group oversaw the implementation of the Minsk agreements aimed at ending the war between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists that broke out in 2014.
Moskalik represented the General Staff at the talks, along with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin website reports.
The Russian newspaper RBK noted that Moskalik participated in the subgroup on security issues within the Minsk talks.
In December, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) used a bomb hidden in an electric scooter to assassinate Lieutenant General Igor Kirilov, whom Kyiv accused of using chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops.
The SBU did not immediately comment on the report of Moskalik’s death.
