MOSCOW (AP) — A car bomb killed a Russian general on Monday, the third assassination of a military commander in a year. Investigators said Ukraine could be behind the attack.

Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, died from his wounds, said the official spokesperson for Russia's Investigative Committee, Svetlana Petrenko.

“Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of investigation regarding the murder. One of them is that the crime was orchestrated by the Ukrainian intelligence services,” she said. Petrenko.

Since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine almost four years ago, Russian authorities have blamed kyiv for several murders of military officers and prominent people in Russia. Ukraine has claimed responsibility for some of them. He had not yet commented on Monday's death.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin was immediately informed about the murder of Sarvarov, who fought in Chechnya and participated in Moscow's military campaign in Syria.

Russia blames Ukraine for more possible assassinations.

Just over a year ago, on December 17, 2024, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the army's nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden in an electric skateboard in front of his apartment building. Kirillov's assistant also died. Ukraine's security service claimed responsibility for the attack.

An Uzbek man was quickly arrested and accused of killing Kirillov on behalf of the Ukrainian security service.

Putin described Kirillov's murder as a “serious mistake” by Russia's security agencies, saying they should learn from it and improve their efficiency.

In April, another Russian military commander, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the main operational department of the General Staff, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car parked near his apartment building on the outskirts of Moscow. A suspect was quickly arrested.

Days after Moskalik's murder, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he received a report from the head of Ukraine's foreign intelligence agency about the “liquidation” of top Russian military commanders, adding that “justice inevitably comes,” although he did not mention Moskalik by name.

Ukraine, which is outnumbered and outsized by the Russian military, has frequently attempted to change the course of the conflict. attacking in unexpected ways. In August last year, Ukrainian forces staged a surprise raid on Russia's Kursk region, even as they struggled to stem Russian offensives in many parts of the front. Russian troops eventually drove them out, but the raid diverted Russian military resources from other areas and boosted Ukrainian morale.

Ukraine has also launched repeated attacks on the Russian navy in the Black Sea with maritime drones and missiles, forcing it to relocate its warships and limit the scale of its operations.

And in June, swarms of truck-launched drones attacked bomber bases across Russia. Ukraine said more than 40 long-range bombers were damaged or destroyed, although Moscow said only several aircraft were hit.

Meanwhile, Western officials accuse Russia of waging a campaign far from the battlefield, accusing it of orchestrating dozens of incidents of disruption and sabotage across Europe as part of an effort to undermine support for Ukraine. Moscow has denied the allegations.

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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.