Russian general killed in car bomb as Trump envoy meets Putin in Moscow
Russian general killed in car bomb as Trump envoy meets Putin in Moscow
A Russian general was killed by a car bomb on Friday, Russia’s top criminal investigation agency said, in the second such attack on a top Russian military officer in four months.
The Investigative Committee said that Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car in Balashikha, just outside Moscow.
The committee’s spokesperson, Svetlana Petrenko, said that the explosive device was rigged with shrapnel. She said that investigators were at the scene.
Russian media ran videos of a vehicle burning in the courtyard of an apartment building.
The committee did not mention possible suspects.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova described Moskalik’s killing as a “terror attack.”
The attack follows the killing of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who died on Dec. 17 when a bomb hidden on an electric scooter parked outside his apartment building exploded as he left for his office. The Russian authorities blamed Ukraine for the killing of Kirillov, and Ukraine’s security agency acknowledged that it was behind that attack.
Kirillov was the chief of Russia’s Radiation, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, the special troops tasked with protecting the military from the enemy’s use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and ensuring operations in a contaminated environment. Kirillov’s assistant also died in the attack.
Friday’s bombing came just as U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, was expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss a U.S.-brokered peace plan for Ukraine. The meeting is their fourth encounter since February.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow was “ready to reach a deal” on ending the war in Ukraine in an interview with CBS News on Thursday, but added that there were still some specific points that needed to be “fine-tuned.”
The United States has been applying more pressure on Ukraine after threatening last week it could walk away from the talks “within days” if it becomes clear a deal cannot be reached.
The latest framework, presented by the Trump administration in Paris last week, proposed significant sacrifices from Kyiv, including US recognition of Crimea as Russian territory and Ukraine ceding large swaths of territory to Russia, according to an official familiar.
Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday called “to freeze the territorial lines at some level close to where they are today.”
Asked what concessions Russia was offering on Thursday, Trump replied, “stopping the war,” suggesting that not “taking the whole country” is a “pretty big concession.”
Recognizing Crimea, the southern Ukrainian peninsula Moscow ilegally annexed in 2014, as Russian would cross a major red line for Ukraine and its European allies, and would be in breach of established international law.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the idea, saying there was “nothing to talk about” as recognizing Crimea as part of Russia would be against Ukraine’s constitution.
Trump slammed Zelensky for the comments, saying they were “inflammatory” and made it “difficult to settle this war.”
By Agencies