A Russian naval officer, who Ukraine had designated as a war criminal, was assassinated in Russia itself according to Reuters.
Stanislav Rzhitsky was listed as “liquidated” on the website Myrotvorets. Russian investigators found a man in his early 60s with a silenced pistol in his possession, following Rzhitsky’s shooting in a parking lot that morning.
The Russian officer was wanted due to his commanding of the submarine Krasnodar, which launched cruise missiles on Ukraine, indiscriminately killing several civilians. He was now in charge of mobilization in his city.
Other high profile assassinations include Darya Dugina, daughter of theorist Alexander Dugin who Putin drew inspiration for his foreign policy. The Russian FSB has not announced the capture of a network plotting all these killings.
Who’s to blame for those assassinations is up for debate. Russia blames Ukrainian intelligence, while Ukraine blames it on power struggles within Russia itself. Prigozhin’s mutiny shows that Russia has internal instability, though Ukraine and its Western intelligence agencies allies have also engaged in sabotage.
