For the second time in little over a year, a high-ranking Russian military official has been assassinated in a car bombing near Moscow. On June 9, Lt. Gen. Damir Davydov, a Russian Defense Ministry official responsible for supplying missiles and artillery ammunition to forces in Ukraine, was killed when explosives planted under his BMW detonated in the Moscow suburb of Balashikha. The explosion occurred roughly 1,150 feet from where Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy chief of the Main Operations Directorate of Russia's General Staff, was killed in a similar attack in April 2025.
Months before Moskalik’s death, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of Russia’s nuclear, biological, and chemical protection troops, was assassinated in Moscow when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter exploded outside an apartment building. A source in Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) told Reuters the agency carried out the operation.
These assassinations are part of a broader pattern targeting senior Russian military figures since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A European intelligence source says the killings are exposing tensions between Russia’s military and the FSB, the country’s powerful domestic security service. The toll of senior military figures killed in missile strikes, drone attacks, car bombings, crashes, and frontline combat has reportedly fueled internal divisions.