A CAR bomb in a quiet Moscow district has killed one of Vladimir Putin’s top generals, making him the third senior Russian military leader to die this year.
It marks the latest killing in a brutal, fast-escalating shadow war playing out far from the frontlines.
Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, the officer responsible for training Russia’s armed forces, was killed shortly before 7am on Monday when an explosive device detonated under a vehicle in the Yasenevo district.
Russian investigators immediately pointed the finger at Ukraine.
Svetlana Petrenko, a spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, said: “Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of inquiry regarding the murder. One of these is that the crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services.”
The Kremlin said Putin was “immediately informed” of the killing.
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The attack was not an isolated strike.
It was the latest flashpoint in an increasingly ruthless campaign of targeted assassinations stretching from Kyiv and Moscow to Spain.
It’s a covert war within the wider conflict, and one Kyiv appears to be winning.
Sarvarov, 56, had fought in Chechnya and helped run Russia’s intervention in Syria.
His death follows a clear pattern of senior figures tied directly to the machinery of Putin’s war being hunted down inside Russia itself.
In April, Lt Gen Yaroslav Moskalik, a key figure in operational planning at Russia’s general staff, was killed by a car bomb in Moscow.
Earlier this year, Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, who ran Russia’s nuclear, chemical and biological protection forces, was killed by a remotely detonated device hidden inside an electric scooter.
Ukraine swiftly claimed responsibility for Kirillov’s killing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later said he had received reports about the successful “liquidation” of Russian military leaders, though he did not name Moskalik directly.
The methods are also evolving, including scooter bombs, car bombs, and mail bombs assembled with the help of couriers recruited online who may not even know what they are carrying.
Nichita Gurcov, Acled’s Europe and Central Asia Senior Analyst, told The Telegraph: “The duel of assassinations…is happening in parallel with the unravelling rules of engagement in conventional warfare, exemplified by indiscriminate targeting of civilians and mistreatment or executions of prisoners of war.
“Unrestricted by the confines of the battlefield, this practice may become a self-sustaining spiral of violence, taking a dangerous shortcut from due process and leaving no exoneration options to victims.”
Mr Gurcov said the tactics increasingly resembled those used by Israel’s Mossad, including disguised explosive devices and cross-border targeting.
In May, the assassination of former Ukrainian politician Andriy Portnov in Madrid showed how far the conflict’s covert front lines now stretch.
And a year earlier, Maxim Kuzminov, a Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine, was killed in Alicante.
Ukraine’s reach & Russia’s weakness
Research by Acled, the global conflict monitor, shows that Ukraine’s assassination campaign has overtaken Russia’s by a significant margin, with late 2024 marking a turning point.
In the first eight months of 2025 alone, Ukrainian assassination attempts inside Russia had already exceeded the annual totals for 2022, 2023 and 2024 combined.
Kyiv’s reach extends well beyond the battlefield.
Apparent suicide bombings have killed Armen Sarkisian, founder of the Arbat battalion, and Zaur Gurtsiev, who oversaw the bombardment of Mariupol.
Ukraine peace talks
US-led talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine are intensifying, but a deal remains out of reach as deep divisions persist over territory, security and power.
Senior US officials held a series of meetings in Miami over the weekend with Russian and Ukrainian envoys.
Negotiators described the discussions as “productive” and “constructive”, but there was no breakthrough.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met separately with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev and a Ukrainian delegation led by defence minister Rustem Umerov.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Washington has floated a new format for direct talks involving Ukraine, Russia, the US and possibly European allies.
The Kremlin quickly played that down. While Dmitriev welcomed the talks, Moscow later said no three-way meeting is currently being prepared.
The talks are stalled by fundamental disagreements. Russia is demanding full control of occupied eastern regions, including Donbas. Ukraine insists it will not give up territory to reward aggression.
Kyiv is also pushing for binding Western security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5.
Moscow rejects any Western military presence in Ukraine. A reported US proposal to cap Ukraine’s army at 600,000 troops has been rejected by Kyiv, which says it needs at least 800,000.
Putin is also questioning Zelenskyy’s legitimacy and calling for elections banned under martial law.
The Trump administration says it wants a fast resolution but insists it will not impose a deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “there’s no peace deal unless Ukraine agrees to it”.
European leaders have pledged €90 billion in new support to strengthen Kyiv’s hand. France’s Emmanuel Macron has said he is open to direct talks with Putin.
Russia, meanwhile, is keeping up military pressure by stepping up strikes on rail and energy infrastructure and launching a new incursion in the Sumy region.
In some cases, the delivery man may not even have known he was carrying a bomb.
Even in Russian-controlled territory, Ukrainian operatives have proved hard to stop.
The 2018 assassination of Donetsk warlord Alexander Zakharchenko was an early warning.
Since 2022, at least five high-profile killings have taken place in Luhansk alone, including that of Igor Kornet, the Russian-installed interior minister.
In December 2024, Ukrainian operatives killed the head of the Olenivka prison in Donetsk, where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war died in a 2022 bombing.
Removing individuals will not halt Russia’s war, but it imposes a psychological cost that no amount of Kremlin propaganda can erase.
Anyone tied to the invasion, from generals to engineers, is now a potential target.
Moscow has tried to respond, but with far less success.
Acled has recorded at least nine Russian assassination attempts in Ukraine between 2023 and August 2025.
Many were poorly executed and relied on local proxies, migrants or criminal networks rather than trained operatives.
The arrest of Ross David Cutmore, a British man accused of helping Russia carry out political assassinations in Ukraine, exposed just how thin Moscow’s covert capabilities have become.
Cutmore, who arrived in Ukraine in 2024, is accused of importing and distributing weapons used in the murders of activist Demian Hanul and politicians Iryna Farion and Andriy Parubiy.
Other attacks have followed a similar pattern.
In July 2025, Col Ivan Voronych of Ukraine’s security service was gunned down in daylight in Kyiv, with the killing claimed by a far-Right group with suspected Russian links.
In May, Serhii Sternenko was wounded by a woman recruited by Russian handlers.