A Russian general was killed in a car bombing on Monday, marking the third assassination of a high-ranking military official within the past year. Investigators are considering the possibility of Ukrainian involvement in the attack.

Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, who served as the head of the Operational Training Directorate for the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, succumbed to his injuries, according to Svetlana Petrenko, spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, which leads the nation’s criminal investigations.

“Our investigators are exploring multiple lines of inquiry in relation to this murder, one of which suggests that Ukrainian intelligence services may have orchestrated the crime,” Petrenko stated.

Ever since Moscow deployed troops to Ukraine nearly four years ago, Russian authorities have attributed a series of assassinations involving military officers and public figures within Russia to Ukrainian operatives. While Ukraine has taken responsibility for some of these incidents, it has yet to comment on the recent death of Sarvarov.

Following the incident, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that President Vladimir Putin was promptly briefed about the general’s assassination.

The Defence Ministry said that Sarvarov had previously fought in Chechnya and taken part in Moscow’s military campaign in Syria.

Just over a year ago, Lieutenant General 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.

Putin described Kirillov’s killing as a “major blunder” by Russia’s security agencies, noting they should learn from it and improve their efficiency.

In April, another senior Russian military officer, Lieutenant General 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 his apartment building just outside Moscow. A suspected perpetrator was quickly arrested.

Days after Moskalik’s killing, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he received a report from the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence agency on the “liquidation” of top Russian military figures, adding that “justice inevitably comes” although he didn’t mention Moskalik’s name.