Yaroslav Moskalik was deputy chief of the main operations directorate of the Russian army
Yaroslav Moskalik, a high-ranking army official, dies after explosion as US envoy meets Putin A senior Russian military general was killed in a car explosion in Moscow on Friday morning. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy chief of the main operations directorate of Russia’s army, was killed on Nesterov Boulevard in the Balashikha suburb of the capital shortly before 11am, according to Russia’s investigative committee.
“According to available data, the explosion occurred as a result of the detonation of a homemade explosive device filled with destructive elements,” a statement from the committee read.
The statement did not say who was responsible for the blast, but Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service has been known to target high-profile military officers on Russian soil
Footage posted by well-placed Telegram channels shows a Volkswagen car burning next to a block of flats on Friday morning.
The Izvestia newspaper also published footage showing a person approaching a line of parked cars outside an apartment complex and an explosion that sent parts of a vehicle flying into the air
The bomb was strapped to the parked car and detonated remotely when the officer, who lived in the neighbourhood, walked past, according to Baza, a Russian media outlet, which has sources inside Russia’s law enforcement agencies.
A second person was also killed in the blast, according to the Kommersant newspaper. The Volkswagen had been purchased a few months ago by a man from the Ukrainian border city of Sumy, according to Russian Telegram channels
Moskalik, who held the rank of lieutenant general, was responsible for planning military operations. He had participated in a number of high-level Russian delegations, including a meeting in October 2015 of the Normandy Format.
The meeting was made up of teams from Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France who oversaw the Minsk agreements designed to end the war between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in 2014.
At the talks, Moskalik represented the Russian military alongside Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, and Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy adviser who was locked in talks with Steve Witkoff, the US envoy, and Vladimir Putin on Friday. Russia’s RBC newspaper also listed Moskalik as a participant in the security subgroup in the Minsk talks.
Telegraph
