Last Updated on August 28, 2026 by YeJahan
YEJAHAN DESK
MOSCOW (Aug 28): A powerful car explosion in St. Petersburg on Thursday killed a Russian military official, reportedly a lieutenant colonel, investigators said.
The blast occurred around 10 a.m. local time near a supermarket in the Shushary neighborhood. The military official was travelling with his wife in a car at the time of the explosion. The wife of the deceased Lt. Colonel sustained serious injuries.
Russia’s top investigative body said it launched a criminal probe into the incident. A Russian military officer was last killed in a bomb attack in annexed Crimea earlier this month. Police arrested a woman suspected of assassinating the officer.
Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out several assassinations of military officers since the full-scale invasion. Ukrainian sources have claimed responsibility for some of the attacks while denying involvement in others.
In December last year, a high-profile Russian general was assassinated by a car bomb in southern Moscow. Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, the head of the Russian General Staff’s army operational training directorate, was travelling in a Kia Sorento when the bomb attached under his vehicle exploded, killing him on the spot.
On April 25, 2025, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, 58, was killed by a car bomb near Moscow. Moskalik was the deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was the chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside a Moscow apartment building along with his assistant. The explosion occurred on December 17, 2024, when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter went off.
Just days before Kirillov’s death, on November 13, 2024, a bomb planted beneath a vehicle killed Valery Trankovsky (Naval Captain) in occupied Sevastopol, Crimea.
On October 4, 2024, Andrei Korotkiy, an employee at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, was killed in a targeted car bomb blast.
On December 6, 2023, the former Ukrainian lawmaker llia Kyva was shot dead in a suburban area near Moscow.
Stanislav Rzhitsky, the Russian submarine commander, was ambushed and shot dead during his morning jog in the southern city of Krasnodar on July 11, 2023.
