A car bomb killed a senior Russian general in southern Moscow on Wednesday, a high-profile blast that came just hours after Russian and Ukrainian delegations held separate talks with U.S. envoys in Miami on a possible path to ending the war.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, 56, head of the General Staff’s training department, died when an explosive device planted under his parked car detonated in a residential district. The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had been briefed. Kyiv has not commented. Investigators said they were examining whether the attack was organized by Ukrainian special services, a claim that could not be independently verified.
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The explosion twisted and charred the vehicle’s frame and sent a loud bang through the neighborhood, according to witnesses. “The windows rattled, you could tell it was an explosion,” said Grigory, 70, who declined to give his surname. “We need to treat it more calmly. It’s the cost of war.” Security forces cordoned off the area as investigators combed the debris.
Sarvarov served in the North Caucasus, including Chechnya in the 1990s, according to his official biography, and later commanded Russian forces in Syria in 2015-16. His death adds to a string of targeted killings of military officials and pro-war figures inside Russia and in occupied territories since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In April, a car blast near Moscow killed Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy of the General Staff. In December 2024, Igor Kirillov, who led Russia’s radiological, chemical and biological defense forces, died after a booby-trapped electric scooter exploded in Moscow; Ukraine’s SBU security service claimed responsibility. Earlier high-profile assassinations include military blogger Maxim Fomin, killed by an exploding statuette in a St. Petersburg cafe in April 2023, and Daria Dugina, who died in a car bombing outside Moscow in August 2022.
The Moscow attack came as Russia and Ukraine pursued U.S.-mediated diplomacy in Florida, where both sides held separate meetings with President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, told state media that “slow progress is being observed” in the talks. Witkoff described the discussions with both delegations as “constructive,” but there were no signs of a breakthrough.
Washington last month circulated a proposal widely seen in Europe as echoing several of the Kremlin’s demands, according to officials familiar with the process. The document has since been redrafted following input from Kyiv and European capitals, although details have not been made public. Moscow has bristled at Europe’s involvement and has pressed Washington to keep negotiations bilateral. Ryabkov criticized what he called “extremely harmful, malicious attempts by an influential group of states to torpedo these efforts.”
Several European countries, including Britain, France and Germany, have signaled openness to deploying a peacekeeping force if a deal is reached. Russia has dismissed that idea as unacceptable. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has publicly questioned whether Moscow is serious about ending the war, which has killed tens of thousands and devastated swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine.
The Kremlin has rejected accusations that it aims to recreate the Soviet Union or seize all of Ukraine, pushing back after Reuters reported that U.S. intelligence believes Putin’s ambitions extend beyond eastern Ukraine.
As investigators piece together the Moscow bombing, the killing of Sarvarov highlights both Russia’s security vulnerabilities far from the front and the growing risks to senior officials amid intensifying clandestine warfare. It also underscores the fragile diplomatic moment: a violent reminder of the conflict’s reach on a day meant to measure diplomatic progress.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
