Russian general shot dead after posting his running route on a sports app

The intelligence department of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has released the details of Rzhitsky’s death. In a Telegram entry on Monday, the agency reported the “seven shots with Makarov pistol” which Rzhitsky received at six in the morning while running through the 30th Anniversary of Victory park. According to the statement, Commander “died instantly“. Other Russian sources allege that Rzhitsky was shot four times, and that the attack happened two hours later.

The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a murder investigation and has assigned the case to the “first department for very important cases” from the regional office. So far, according to the Russian media MashRzhitsky’s watch and headphones have been found at the crime scene, indicating that the attack was not perpetrated to steal to the submariner The Russian authorities have also stated that they have arrested a suspect. They posted a video of officers armed with machine guns arresting a 64 year old man in his underwear named Sergey Denisenko. Still it has not been confirmed if he is the culprit or if he had ties to Ukraine.

Several Russian media have accused Ukraine of being behind the murdersince Rzhitsky had strained military relations with the country as a former member of the Russian Army. Specifically, the Ukrainian media had accused him and his crew of kill 23 peopleincluding three children, in a attack on Ukraine in July 2022. Rzhitsky’s father has denied the accusationsand has declared to the Russian medium Baza that the deceased resigned from the Russian armed forces in December 2021.

The Russian media have pointed to Rzhitsky’s alleged involvement in that attack as a possible motive for murder. They have also highlighted that the address and personal details of the captain they had been published on the Ukrainian website Myrotvoretsan unofficial database of people considered enemies of the country. This Tuesday, the photo of Rzhitsky on the portal was covered in red letters that read: “liquidated“.

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Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, tweeted on Tuesday that the Russian media they have no proof of Ukraine’s participation in the murder of Rzhitsky. “Until now, the Russian Police can’t find a single surveillance camera showing the commission of the crime,” he said. Furthermore, according to the original message from Ukrainian intelligence, due to the strong rains the day of the murder, “the park was deserted, so there were no witnesses who could provide details or identify the attacker“.

Second Russian officer killed this week

Rzhitsky is one of the two soldiers high ranking russians murdered this week. The other, the lieutenant general Oleg Tsokovwas murdered on tuesday near the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Berdyansk, according to kyiv. “On July 11, 2023, Russian Lieutenant General Oleg Yurievich Tsokov was assassinated,” said Yurii Mysyagin, a member of the Ukrainian parliament. “He British ‘Storm Shadow’ visited it accurately“he added, referring to the cruise missiles which the UK donated to Ukraine for its fight against Russia.

The Ukrainian authorities have not taken responsibility of the attack on Rzhitsky as they did with Toskov. However, the recentness of these two murders, as well as the increase in the number of Russian government agents killed since the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, exposes a possible vulnerability within the Kremlin’s military forces.