A colonel of the Russian Armed Forces died this Thursday in Saint Petersburg when a bomb placed under his car exploded. The Russian Investigative Committee has confirmed the death of a soldier and has opened a murder case.
The attack startled residents around seven in the morning, local time, in the Slavianka neighborhood, in Shushari, south of the city. There are thousands of military homes in that area. The explosive was attached to the underside of the vehicle and was activated remotely when the driver left the courtyard of his building towards the Kolpino road. The officer died at the scene, after the car drove about 300 meters.
Local television 78 indicates that the deceased was the chief of navigation of the VI Army of the Russian Air Force and Anti-Aircraft Defense, but it has not been officially confirmed. Local media indicate that he was traveling alone, correcting initial information that spoke of an injured family member. The authorship of the attack remains unclarified.
The neighbors heard a loud crash. "We live nearby and we heard a loud bang around seven. When we arrived, everything was already cordoned off," a passerby told Fontanka. Various debris and glass fragments were scattered around the vehicle that exploded.
It is the second fatal attack against a Russian officer in the same neighborhood in less than three months. On August 27, another car exploded on the Kolpino highway, killing a lieutenant colonel. His wife was hospitalized. Moscow has blamed Ukraine for a string of assassinations of military commanders and others linked to the Russian war effort. Ukrainian sources have acknowledged some operations and denied others. They usually avoid commenting on their actions.
Experts agree that it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of the assassinations for Ukraine's war performance. Ukraine seeks to make Russian commanders pay a personal cost for the war, even when they are far from the front. The implicit message is that returning home does not guarantee your safety: as an analysis by Matthew Savill, of the RUSI analysis center, points out, these operations aim to increase psychological pressure, demonstrate the reach of Ukrainian services and force Russia to dedicate more resources to counterintelligence within its borders. The Ukrainians have publicly identified personnel they believe were involved in the long-range missile attacks: then they go after them.
On December 22, 2025, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, responsible for the operational preparation of the General Staff, was killed when a bomb exploded under his car in Moscow. Russian investigators included the possible involvement of Ukrainian services among their hypotheses. On April 25, 2025, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy director of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff, was killed in Balashikha, east of Moscow. A bomb installed in a parked car exploded as it passed by. The Kremlin blamed kyiv. The attack occurred hours before a meeting between Vladimir Putin and US envoy Steve Witkoff.
One of the most high-profile murders was that of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the nuclear, biological and chemical protection troops. He died along with his assistant on December 17, 2024, in front of a residential building in Moscow, from a bomb hidden in an electric scooter. In that case, a source from the Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, confirmed to Reuters that the operation had been organized by that agency.
The list of murdered soldiers also includes Captain Valeri Trankovski, killed with a bomb under his car in Sevastopol in November 2024, and Stanislav Rzhitski, former commander of a submarine in the Black Sea Fleet, shot in July 2023 while jogging in Krasnodar: apparently they located him through the application on the mobile phone he used for sports. Ukrainian media reported that Rzhitski commanded the Krasnodar submarine, which launched Kalibr missiles at Vinnitsia on July 14, 2022, killing 27 civilians, including three children.
A common pattern is the separation between those who organize the operation and those who execute it on the ground. In Kirillov's case, they used a man who was recruited to plant the explosive, hidden in an electric scooter, and surveillance of the target using a camera. The detainee had been promised $100,000 and residency in a European country. The punishment factor also plays a role in kyiv's decisions: in the case of Kirillov, an SBU source explained to Reuters that they considered him responsible for the use of chemical weapons, so that decisions made during the war can haunt those responsible afterwards.
The Slavianka neighborhood, where the attack occurred, was largely developed to house soldiers and their families. The Ministry of Defense bought thousands of homes there; in 2011 alone, 1,670 apartments were distributed among soldiers in that neighborhood. Putin himself visited the Slavianka military housing in November 2010. Today it is a 'hunting zone' for Ukrainian attacks inside Russia. Militarily, eliminating experienced officers can interrupt tasks and harm the continuity of command to some extent, but the specialists consulted point out that its effect on the course of the war is difficult to demonstrate. The most visible impact is the insecurity it introduces among the commanders and the discredit of Russian services incapable of protecting them in all cases.
