The National Interest
May 5, 2025
By: David Kirichenko
A wave of assassinations deep inside Russia is rattling the Kremlin, eroding Putin’s sense of security, and signaling Ukraine’s expanding intelligence capabilities.
Ukrainian strikes are hitting closer to home for the Putin regime, quite literally.
On April 25, a car bomb in Moscow killed Yaroslav Moskalik, a high-ranking Russian general and deputy chief of the General Staff’s main operations directorate. Moskalik was not just a senior figure; he was central to Russia’s war planning and personally briefed Putin on developments in Ukraine. His assassination, on the same day U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow, sent a powerful signal to the heart of the Kremlin.
On April 26, while aboard Air Force One en route to Pope Francis’ funeral, U.S. President Donald Trump appeared unaware of the car bombing that had killed a Russian general in Moscow.
When reporters informed him, he reacted with surprise: “Wow. No, I just heard—you’re telling me that for the first time.” He added that the news was “hitting close to home” and promised, “If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
Trump also expressed skepticism about Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia, saying, “I think that nation will be crushed very shortly. It’s a big war machine.”
This wasn’t an isolated incident. It follows a broader trend of covert operations by Ukraine’s intelligence services, helping expand the battlefields beyond the frontlines. The next day, Russian authorities detained Ignat Kuzin, who allegedly confessed under interrogation to being an agent of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), though such confessions are often extracted through torture.
Just days earlier, Yevgeny Rytikov, a leading Russian electronic warfare designer responsible for modernizing the Krasukha anti-drone system, was killed in a car bombing in Bryansk.
Andrei Soldatov, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said, “The FSB (Russia’s principal security agency) is very good at investigating what already happened, but not very good at collecting intelligence about what’s coming. It’s a different set of skills.”
One of the most notable was the killing of General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s nuclear, biological, and chemical defense forces. Just one day after the SBU charged him in absentia for overseeing the widespread use of banned chemical weapons, Kirillov was killed in a car bombing in Moscow.
Ukrainian officials hold him responsible for more than 4,800 cases involving chemical munitions, with over 2,000 soldiers hospitalized and several soldiers died as a result.
What Message Do These High-Profile Assassinations Send?
An SBU source confirmed to The Financial Times that the agency’s secretive fifth counterintelligence directorate was behind the strike. “Such an inglorious end awaits all who kill Ukrainians,” the official said, calling Kirillov a war criminal. SBU Chief Vasyl Malyuk reinforced that message: “Every crime of the aggressor must be punished.”
Former CIA station chief Douglas London said the assassination sends a psychological message to Russia’s elites that they’re not safe anywhere. However, he doubts it will impact Russia’s actual warfighting capabilities.
However, retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman highlighted that it served as a message to both Moscow and Washington that Ukraine will continue fighting by all available means in its existential war.
The SBU and Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR, have expanded their footprint deep inside Russian territory. Despite internal rivalries, particularly between HUR’s Kyrylo Budanov and SBU deputy Oleksandr Poklad, both agencies have maintained a relentless campaign of sabotage and targeted assassinations.
While increasingly frequent, such strikes are part of a longstanding Ukrainian playbook. Ukraine’s intelligence services have a long track record of eliminating high-profile targets outside its borders.
In 2015 and 2016, HUR was linked to the assassinations of key Russian-backed commanders in Donbas: Mikhail Tolstykh “Givi” was killed by a rocket in his office; Arsen Pavlov “Motorola” was blown up in an elevator; and Alexander Zakharchenko was killed in a restaurant bombing.
Since 2022, the tempo has only increased. Ukraine’s intelligence services have systematically eliminated dozens of Russian military officials, collaborators, and war criminals. Reports of high-profile assassinations in Russia are no longer shocking and are now expected to a certain degree.
General Kirillov, Admiral Valery Trankovsky, and missile specialist Mikhail Shatsky are just a few of the high-value targets taken out in Russia and occupied Ukraine. Others have included judges complicit in occupation regimes and prison officials linked to war crimes, such as the Olenivka massacre.
The CIA Is Uncomfortable with Ukraine’s High-Profile Assassinations
The August 2022 assassination of Daria Dugina, daughter of Kremlin ideologue Aleksandr Dugin, also known as Putin’s brain, raised tensions with Washington.
While seen as a message to Moscow’s elite, the killing reportedly unsettled U.S. officials, with The New York Times noting that American officials were frustrated.
The backlash to Dugina’s 2022 assassination echoed a similar episode in 2016, when Ukraine’s military intelligence, which included Budanov himself, conducted covert operations in Russian-occupied Crimea that resulted in the deaths of Russian FSB officers. The Obama administration was reportedly angered by the incident, fearing it could provoke direct escalation with Moscow.
Budanov, a product of the elite Unit 2245 that the CIA trained, would eventually rise to lead the country’s military intelligence agency. His rise made him a marked man.
Budanov went on to say, “They’ve been trying to charge me with terrorism since 2016.” The Russians have given it over ten attempts to try and kill Budanov. In 2024, Russian officials went so far as to accuse Budanov of plotting an assassination attempt against President Putin himself with U.S. funding.
Putin now faces threats on multiple fronts.
High-Profile Assassinations Spell Doom for Putin
Not only are Ukrainian soldiers operating inside Russia’s border regions like Belgorod and Kursk, but Putin is also contending with Ukrainian intelligence operatives who move across Russian territory with apparent ease, exacting revenge.
Even loyalist propagandists have taken note. Zakhar Prilepin warned that Ukraine will continue eliminating traitors and war criminals even after a peace deal is signed. He believes the war must be fought to a “victorious end.”
These threats from the Ukrainian side now appear to shape decisions at the top. Putin is desperate for a three-day ceasefire in Moscow as he knows the ominous threat posed by Ukrainian drones.
Mark Galeotti, a Russia analyst, noted that “drone attacks on the capital have become increasingly common,” and the recent assassination of General Yaroslav Moskalik suggests that Ukrainians are growing increasingly adept at covert operations on Russian soil.
Ukraine views targeted assassinations as an effective strategy, and is accumulating both strategic gains and bragging rights in the process. “If you’re asking about Mossad as being famous [for] eliminating enemies of their state, then we were doing it and will be doing it. We don’t need to create anything because it already exists,” said Budanov.
Following recent Russian strikes on civilian targets in Kyiv, Ukraine’s intelligence chief vowed retaliation, promising that Moscow will receive “the full retribution it deserves.”
Putin’s paranoia has continued growing over the past year, and the psychological toll is mounting. The Moscow Times highlighted that “the special services control practically every aspect of Putin’s life, down to testing all of his meals for poison using a portable lab.”
During a March visit to Murmansk, his security team was seen physically searching honor guards for hidden weapons. One of his presidential limousines mysteriously caught fire outside the FSB’s Moscow headquarters just days later.
The symbolism is hard to miss.
What once seemed unthinkable, Ukrainian operatives striking at the heart of Moscow, is now becoming routine. The threat that the Kremlin elite so often warns about is no longer a distant force beyond Russia’s borders, it is now circling the Kremlin itself.
Even Russia’s most seasoned propagandists are showing visible signs of unease, forced to confront the uncomfortable reality that Ukraine’s campaign of targeted assassinations is proving alarmingly effective.
The war may still rage across Ukrainian battlefields, but the fear is moving to Moscow. Mr. Trump may soon find himself increasingly surprised that Ukraine still has plenty of cards to play.
David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist and an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank. His research focuses on autonomous systems, cyber warfare, irregular warfare, and military strategy. His analyses have been widely published in outlets such as the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, the Irregular Warfare Center, Military Review, and The Hill, as well as in peer-reviewed journals.