A SENIOR Vladimir Putin war general has reportedly been killed in a huge car bombing in Moscow.
Dramatic footage shows how Yaroslav Moskalik, a 59-year-old defence ministry general, was sent “several metres” in the air due to the deadly suspected assassination.
Yaroslav Moskalik has reportedly been killed in a car bomb explosion
East2WestFlames engulfed the Volkswagen Golf[/caption]
The 59-year-old defence ministry general was reportedly killedEast2West
Images show how a Volkswagen Golf was left decimated in Balashikha in Moscow region at around 10:40am today.
The car was quickly engulfed in the flames as thick black smoke billowed into the air.
Moskalik was said to have been walking past at the exact moment of the explosion.
Traces of IED striking elements were reportedly found at the scene.
The power of the explosives uncovered was the equivalent of more than 300g of TNT, Russian emergency services say.
Unconfirmed reports also say two others may have been seriously injured.
Moskalik was deputy chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
He also represented Russia’s General Staff in talks with Ukraine in 2015.
The explosive was likely detonated from a remote location with the car parked only a few feet away from a tall apartment block.
It is still unclear who may have caused the blast with many onlookers left shocked by the inferno.
One building even had its windows shattered due to the ferocity of the explosion, locals said.
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has opened a criminal case into the explosion.
The timing of the deadly ploy comes as US President Donald Trump‘s special envoy Steve Witkoff is due to meet with Putin later today.
Witkoff is in Moscow for another round of talks with Russia over ending the Ukraine war.
The blast in Moscow came just 24 hours after Russia blitzed Ukraine with over 200 missiles and drones, killing at least a dozen people and injuring 80 more.
The deadly aerial attacks were followed up by further Kremlin attacks overnight on Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv.
A number of top Russian officials have been targeted in similar covert attacks since Putin launched his full scale invasion on Ukraine over three years ago.
In December, a bomb planted in an electric scooter blew up a top Russian general accused of masterminding the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine.
The car was blown to pieces in the blastEast2West
Onlookers watched on in shock as smoke billowed into the airX/PolymarketIntel
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, 54, was killed as the device detonated just seconds after he left his apartment in Moscow.
Ukraine’s intelligence services said they were behind the blast at the time as Britain’s MI6 revealed it helps Kyiv with “covert action”.
Last November, another top Putin commander was taken out by a car bomb.
A graphic video showed how Russian naval commander Captain Valery Trankovsky was blown up in a fiery inferno.
Trankovsky’s legs had blasted off in the explosion and he died from “combined injuries and profuse blood loss.”
The commander has been the highest-ranking naval officer to be killed on the edge of Russia since the invasion started.
Back in July, Andrei Torgashov, 50, jumped into a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado which quickly exploded – leaving his legs blown off.
Russian authorities suspected the blast north of Moscow, was likely linked to the war in Ukraine and was treated as an assassination attempt.
AFPRussia launched a number of damaging strikes on Kharkiv overnight[/caption]
