A senior Russian military officer is killed in an attack in Moscow.

Russian Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, a senior general staff officer, was killed Friday by a car bomb in the city of Balashikha, outside Moscow, Russia's Investigative Committee reported. Moskalik was deputy chief of the operations command of the Russian Armed Forces' General Staff and had participated in several high-level Russian delegations, according to Reuters, citing Defense Ministry bulletins and media reports. For example, he had participated in the Minsk Agreement talks to end the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

The Russian Investigative Committee reported that it has opened a criminal investigation into murder, but has not named a possible perpetrator of the attack. According to Russian media and bloggers, Moskalik, who was 59, died after passing by a car containing a remotely detonated explosive device. The attack took place in the courtyard of a housing development in the east of the Russian capital specifically built for retired military personnel.



Several high-ranking Russian military figures have been killed since the start of the war in Ukraine in operations that Moscow attributes to Kiev. In December of last year, Lieutenant General Igor Kirilov, head of Russia's radiation, chemical, and biological defense, when he left his house..