Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik

Deputy Head, Main Operational Directorate, General Staff - Killed April 25, 2025

Since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a campaign of assassinations has targeted its military elite in Moscow. On February 6, 2026, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev—first deputy head of Russian military intelligence (GRU), accused of masterminding the 2018 Salisbury nerve agent attack—was shot three times in his apartment building by an attacker posing as a delivery person. He underwent emergency surgery, regained consciousness on February 7, and stabilized under intensive care. Russia's FSB detained three suspects: Lyubomir Korba, a 65-year-old Russian citizen extradited from Dubai whom the FSB claims confessed to SBU recruitment; Viktor Vasin, detained in Moscow; and Zinaida Serebritskaya, who fled to Ukraine. Kyiv has officially denied involvement.

Updated Feb 13

Deputy Chief of Main Operations Directorate, Russian General Staff - Killed by car bomb near Moscow, April 25, 2025

A car bomb killed Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov in southern Moscow on December 22, 2025—the latest in a series of targeted assassinations of Russian military officials. Sarvarov, who headed the training department within Russia's general staff, was blown up in the capital city itself, a brazen escalation of Ukraine's shadow war behind Russian lines. Two days later, another bombing in the same Moscow district killed two police officers and the attacker, raising questions about whether the incidents are connected.

Updated Dec 25, 2025