Top Russian GRU military intelligence officer assassinated in his car

A top Russian military intelligence officer has been assassinated in his car just days after he returned from the Ukrainian frontline.

The GRU agent, named locally as Nikita Klenkov, 44, was shot dead on Wednesday in what appeared to be an organised hit in the Moscow region, TASS state news agency reported.

Local media claimed law enforcement sources believed the killer had waited for the serviceman's car before pulling the trigger.

TASS said at least three shots were fired into the side window of the victim's car as he was driving, and the vehicle kept moving until it ran into the fence of a house. 

Klenkov, according to Russian media, was said to be a high-ranking officer in the GRU military intelligence service.

There has not yet been any official confirmation of his identity. 

A source told TASS: 'According to the Investigative Committee, on the morning of October 16, an unknown person in the village of Melenki near Moscow fired at least three times from a car into the side window of the driver's door of another car driven by a local resident'.

Klenkov was killed on the spot, while the vehicle continued moving ahead until it rammed into the fence.

According to Baza, a grey Mitsubishi Outlander is being sought, and its driver - on suspicion of murder, but the motives behind the assassination remain unknown.  

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Telegram channel VChK-OGPU confirmed Klenkov was the deputy commander of a military unit and served in one of the special forces units, reports Novaya Gazeta.

The site of Klenkov's murder is less than 20 minutes' drive from the Special Operations Training Center where he worked.

It comes a year after several Russian commanders were killed and seriously injured in a devastating Ukrainian missile strike against a military headquarters in September.

Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, said at least nine Russian soldiers or sailors had been killed and 16 injured during an attack by Storm Shadow missiles on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Russian-occupied Crimea. 

The strike, by as many as three missiles, was timed to coincide with a meeting of senior military leaders. 

Among those seriously injured were Colonel General Alexander Romanchuk, the commander leading the Kremlin's forces in southern Ukraine, and Lieutenant General Oleg Tsekov, the commander of ground forces usually based in Arctic Russia, was also understood to be in a serious condition after the barrage.

And in 2022, Russia lost another of its top generals after being taken out in a strike by the Ukrainian armed forces in March.

Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev who bragged on just the fourth day of the war that it would be over in a matter of hours, was apparently killed after the Ukrainian army destroyed the commanding post of the 49th Russian Army in southern Ukraine.

Major-General Oleg Mityaev, 47, commander of the army's 150th motorised rifle division, died fighting in the besieged city of Mariupol while Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, 45, was killed on March 7 outside the eastern city of Kharkiv, in the same year.

Meanwhile Major-General Andrey Kolesnikov, Commander of the Guards Tank Kantemirovskaya Division, was also killed in fighting on March 11 and Major-General Andrei Sukhovetsky, 47, was killed during a special operation by a sniper on March 3.

Russia suffered its bloodiest month in September since the start of the war with Ukraine, as its front line casualties grew to 1,271 per day.

It comes as Russia continues to ramp up its 'meat grinder' tactics - a term used to describe the way Moscow ruthlessly sends waves of men forward to try to wear out Ukrainian defensive positions.

Although Russia has been making steady gains in eastern Ukraine over the last 14 months, the merciless tactic has come at a cost for Russia, with analysts pointing to these methods as the reason for the high casualty rate.

The figures for deaths and injuries seen in September are an increase from the previous highest daily casualty rate for Russian soldiers recorded in May, with an average of 1,262 soldiers killed or injured per day.

According to the Ministry of Defence, 'the increase in the casualty rate since may 2024 is almost certainly due to the extension of the combat zone to include both Kharkiv and Kursk military operations, and increased intensity along the front line'.

September is also the fifth consecutive month that Russian casualties averaged more than 1,000 soldiers per day.

Russia has lost more than 70,000 soldiers since its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to the BBC.

Casualties for Moscow's troops averaged between 172 and 559 per day in 2022 and peaked at 967 in 2023.