Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, Deputy Chief of the General Operations Directorate (GOC) of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, died in a car explosion in the Russian town of Balashikha (30 km east of Moscow).

This was reported to TASS by the official representative of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Svetlana Petrenko.

"According to preliminary information, the explosion killed the deputy chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik. According to available data, the blast occurred as a result of detonation of an improvised explosive device filled with striking elements," Petrenko said.

Photos from the scene posted on social media show flames engulfing the vehicle.

Investigative news website Agentstvo, citing leaked information, reported that Moskalik lives in Balashikha, but the Volkswagen is not registered in his name.

Security camera footage published by the Izvestiya newspaper showed a powerful explosion, with fragments of the vehicle flying through the air. The blast happens just as someone is seen walking towards the car.

According to the Kremlin's website, Moskalik was a Russian military representative at the Normandy format talks on Ukraine in 2015, at the height of the conflict between Kiev and Russian-backed separatists.

In 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin made him a lieutenant general.

The blast appears to be similar to previous attacks on Russians linked to Moscow's aggression in Ukraine.

In some cases, Kiev has claimed responsibility but has not commented on today's attack.

These include the August 2022 car-bombing of journalist Darya Dugina (daughter of Putin-close philosopher Alexander Dugin) and the April 2023 explosion at a cafe in St. Petersburg that killed senior war correspondent Maxim Fomin, known as Vladlen Tatarsky.

Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian army's chemical weapons unit, was killed by a bomb planted in a scooter in Moscow in December - the boldest assassination claimed by Kiev since the conflict began.

After Kirilov's assassination, Putin made a rare admission of failings by his powerful security services, saying, "We must not allow such very serious blunders to happen." | BGNES