Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense Roman Kostenko stated that the murder of Russian Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik was organized by Ukrainian special services. He said this in an interview with Ukrainian media, emphasizing that such operations are part of the strategy to counter Russia. The murder took place on April 25, 2025, in Balashikha near Moscow, when a car explosion killed the deputy head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Kostenko's statement caused a wide resonance, and the Russian authorities called the incident a terrorist attack, accusing the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) of it.

According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the explosion occurred on the morning of April 25, when Moskalik left the entrance of a building on Nesterov Boulevard and approached a parked Volkswagen Golf. A homemade explosive device filled with shrapnel was detonated remotely. The power of the explosion, equivalent to about one kilogram of TNT, led to the death of the general and also damaged the residential building, breaking the windows on the first floors. The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under articles on murder and illegal trafficking of explosives, and later the case was reclassified as an act of terrorism.

On April 26, the Russian Federal Security Service reported the arrest of a suspect, 42-year-old Ignat Kuzin, who is described as an agent of the Ukrainian special services. During interrogation, Kuzin admitted that he was recruited by the SBU in April 2023 in the Kiev region. According to him, he moved to Moscow in September 2023, and in November 2024, he rented an apartment in the same building where Moskalik lived in order to monitor his routine. In February 2025, Kuzin purchased a car, in which he later installed an explosive device obtained from a cache organized by the Ukrainian special services. The device, assembled from TNT blocks, bolts and screws, was activated remotely by a curator named Vadim from the territory of Ukraine. The Basmanny Court of Moscow arrested Kuzin, he is charged with terrorism and illegal trafficking of explosives.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called Moskalik's murder a terrorist act and said that the involvement of Ukrainian special services, if confirmed, would once again demonstrate the barbaric nature of the Kyiv regime. She noted that the general was known to the Ukrainian side since his work in the Minsk Contact Group and the Normandy format negotiations on the settlement of the conflict in Donbas in 2015-2019.