Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, the deputy head of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, was killed when a homemade bomb filled with shrapnel exploded in his car, near his home in Moscow. The assassation occurred while President Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharov has labeled it an act of terrorism.
“There is reason to believe that Ukrainian special services were involved in the murder,” Zakharova said, “especially since Yaroslav Moskalik was known to them from his time working in the Minsk Contact Group and the Normandy format for resolving the conflict in southeastern Ukraine.”