Friday morning, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik was heading out from his flat in Balashikha, a commuter town east of Moscow, when a car bomb exploded, killing him. There can be little doubt this is an operation by Ukrainian intelligence, another example of their capacity to launch skilful targeted assassinations in the heart of Russia. But will it actually change anything? That is more doubtful.
It is hard not to assume this was another killing by the Ukrainians
Moskalik was not a high-profile figure, but as deputy head of the General Staff’s Main Operations Directorate (GOU), he was a capable officer and potentially on a career track for even higher office. The GOU, after all, is the brains of Russia’s General Staff, the body which oversees the planning and execution of military operations. While it is easy to deride the heavy-handed and wasteful Russian activity in Ukraine, the biggest blunders have tended to be either mandated by Vladimir Putin or his compliant Chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, or the result of decisions taken at the tactical level. A German officer based at Nato HQ recently noted that the GOU, ‘despite all the dysfunctions of the Putin regime’, was ‘demonstrating a notable capacity to adapt to the new realities of war, and the circumstances on the ground.’
Like Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Defence Troops in December last year, Moskalik was killed by an improvised explosive device detonated by remote control, although in this case based on a car rather than an electric scooter. A Volkswagen Golf had been packed with up to twenty 40mm VOG-25 high-explosive fragmentation grenades, a Russian-made munition also used by Ukraine, a remote detonator and a webcam, so that when Moskalik was passing, the bomb was detonated and he was blown back several metres, killed instantly.
This was a sophisticated device, and while guns are readily available on the black market, VOG-25 rounds, especially in such numbers, are not. While Moskalik’s address was not a state secret as such, it did not appear on publicly-available records, and the placement of the car bomb on the path he would take to his own car suggests he had been under observation for a while. It is hard not to assume this was another killing by the Ukrainians, whether the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) or HUR, military intelligence.
Clearly, this is another failure of Russia’s counter-intelligence community, especially the Federal Security Service (FSB). That said, the Ukrainians have demonstrated themselves to be ruthless, imaginative and efficient in their covert operations, and short of turning the whole country into a North Korean-style security state (which on one level might not displease the hawks, but which would certainly put paid to any attempts to minimise the risks and costs of the war), attacks will get through regardless.
In due course, no doubt, there will be arrests, but just like the Russians in their operations in Europe, the Ukrainians have learned the value of using proxies in a kind of ‘gig sabotage’ economy. Akhmadzhon Kurbonov, the Uzbek citizen charged with Kirillov’s murder, was reportedly promised $100,000 and relocation to Europe, but his handlers – who were safely back in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro – quite possibly expected him to be arrested, and kept any wider knowledge from him, so there was not much he could tell the Russians. He never even got his money. Likewise, even if the foot soldiers behind Moskalik’s assassination are identified and arrested, they are presumably going to be small fry.
The response has been different from after Kirillov’s murder, though. There was a degree of panic then, a fear that Kyiv was going to be systematically targeting senior Russian officers. Unless we see another such attack soon, suggesting an increased operational tempo, this is not likely to be repeated. Indeed, although the timing of the attack was probably coincidental – once ready, such an operation cannot be stalled for long without substantially increasing the risk of discovery – the fact that it coincided with another visit by US emissary Steve Witkoff has been spun as proof that Kyiv is desperate and hoping to derail the negotiations. (And, needless to say, ultra-nationalist news outlets such as Tsargrad have suggested MI6 is ultimately responsible.)
Moskalik was an able officer, and his death will create short-term disruption within the GOU as his replacement gets up to speed, and some small long-term damage to the senior officer talent pool. But the truth is that however effective an operation by Kyiv’s operatives is, as the likelihood of some kind of ceasefire in the war looms, the overall impact will be, as one British security official admitted, ‘a story today, forgotten tomorrow.’
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