3 die in explosion in area of Moscow where car bomb killed a general Monday

Moscow — Three people, including two police officers, were killed in an explosion in Moscow on Wednesday, Russian investigators said, just days after a car bomb killed a high-ranking general not far away.

The two traffic police officers were approaching a “suspicious individual” when an explosive device detonated, Investigate Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement. The two officers, as well as another person standing nearby, died from their injuries.

Investigators and forensic experts were working at the scene, Petrenko said.

The incident took place in the same area of the Russian capital where Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov was killed by a car bomb Monday morning.

Sarvarov, the head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, died when an explosive device detonated under his vehicle in southern Moscow.

Investigators said Ukraine may have been behind the attack, which was the third such killing of a senior military officer in just over a year.

On Dec. 17, 2024, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his apartment building. Kirillov’s assistant also died. Ukraine’s security service claimed responsibility for the attack. An Uzbek man was quickly arrested and charged with killing Kirillov on behalf of the Ukrainian security service.

In April. another senior Russian military officer, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car parked near to his apartment building just outside Moscow. A suspected perpetrator was quickly arrested.

Since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine nearly four years ago, Russian authorities have blamed Ukraine for several assassinations of military officers and public figures in Russia. Ukraine has claimed responsibility for some of them.