Moscow car blast kills Russian general as Ukraine peace talks stall

Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov was killed in Moscow on December 22, after an explosive device placed under his car went off. Photo / Alexander Nemenov, AFP

A car bomb has killed a senior Russian general in southern Moscow as officials reported “slow progress” in talks with the United States on how to end the war in Ukraine.

Top negotiators from both Russia and Ukraine were in Miami over the weekend for separate meetings with US officials seeking to break the deadlock on a deal to end almost four years of fighting, triggered by Moscow’s all-out offensive on its neighbour in 2022.

Kyiv has not commented on the blast, on Monday (local time), the latest in a string of similar incidents, but Russian investigators said they suspected it was “linked” to “Ukrainian special forces”.

The attack had the hallmarks of other assassinations of generals and pro-war figures that have either been claimed or are widely believed to have been orchestrated by Ukraine.

Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, 56, head of the Russian General Staff’s training department, was killed when the bomb, which had been placed under his parked car, detonated in a residential quarter of southern Moscow.

AFP reporters at the scene saw a mangled white Kia SUV, its doors and back window blown out. The frame was twisted and charred from the blast.

The scene had been cordoned off by security forces, and investigators were sifting through the debris. Witnesses reported a loud bang.

“We absolutely didn’t expect it. We thought we were safe, and then this happens right next to us,” a resident, Tatiana, 74, told AFP.

“The windows rattled, you could tell it was an explosion,” said Grigory, 70, who also declined to give his surname.

“We need to treat it more calmly. It’s the cost of war.”

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it was “working through various lines of inquiry into the murder. One of them involves the possible organisation of the crime by Ukrainian special services”.

Sarvarov fought in the Russian army’s campaigns in the North Caucasus, including Chechnya in the 1990s, according to his official biography on the defence ministry’s website.

He had also been one of the figures overseeing Russian forces in Syria in 2015-16.

Talks intensify

The Kremlin said Putin had been informed about Monday’s killing, which came after three days of talks in Miami as the United States intensifies its efforts to broker an end to the nearly four-year war.

Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov and US special envoy Steve Witkoff hailed “progress” in the negotiations on Sunday.

Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev also met with the US team, which included Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

Witkoff had also called those meetings “productive and constructive”.

But Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said only “slow progress is being observed” in the talks, state media reported on Monday.

An initial 28-point plan to end the war put forward by US President Donald Trump adhered to Moscow’s core demands, triggering panic in Kyiv and European capitals.

Ukraine and its allies have since been working to refine the plan, though Kyiv says it is still being asked to make massive concessions, such as giving up the entire eastern Donbas region to Russia.

Moscow has bristled at Europe’s involvement, as it tries to broker a deal exclusively with Trump.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed scepticism over whether Russia really wants to end the war, which has killed tens of thousands and decimated eastern and southern Ukraine.

Since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv has been blamed for several attacks targeting Russian military officials and pro-Kremlin figures in Russia and in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.

-Agence France-Presse