Russia Nab 64-Year-Old Man For Killing Ex-Submarine Commander

• Stanislav Rzhitsky was shot dead while jogging in a park
• No witnesses to provide details or identify the attacker – Officials

Russian FSB Security Services said on Tuesday that a 64-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of killing Stanislav Rzhitsky, accused by Ukraine of deadly strikes in the ongoing war

Rzhitsky, a senior Russian Draft Officer and former Submarine Commander accused by Ukraine of initiating deadly bombings on its territory was shot dead while jogging in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar.

Local police confirmed that the yet-to-be unidentified gunman shot and killed Rzhitsky, 42, on Monday during a morning run in a park near the Olimp sports centre.

At the time of his death, Rzhitsky was serving as the Deputy head of the Krasnodar City administration’s mobilisation and according to the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant, Rzhitsky was previously the Commander of the Krasnodar submarine, named after the city, in the Russian Navy.

In a Telegram post on Tuesday, the Ukrainian army accused Rzhitsky of being in command of a submarine that carried out a deadly missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia in July 2022 and killing 23 civilians in the process.

Rzhitsky’s father told the Baza, a Russian Telegram channel with links to the security services, that his son left the military in December 2021, before Russia invaded Ukraine, even as Baza further reported that the killer could have tracked Rzhitsky’s runs on the Strava app, as he regularly followed the same 4-mile route while running.

Similarly, several close friends of Rzhitsky told the independent Russian station, Dozdh that Rzhitsky left the army before the war started. Interestingly, the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s main directorate of intelligence, GUR, did not claim responsibility for Rzhitsky’s death.

However, in a cryptic message, GUR shared a series of details about the killing, including the time of the attack (6 am) and the lack of witnesses because of rain, noting that; “Due to heavy rain, the park was deserted, so there were no witnesses who could provide details or identify the attacker”.

Also, in a later statement, the Agency’s Chief, Kyrylo Budanov, rejected claims that Ukrainian intelligence was behind the killing, saying; “Statements by some media and politicians that the GUR has something to do with the death of Stanislav Rzhitsky have no basis”.

Ukraine typically declines to claim responsibility for attacks on Russia or Russian-annexed Crimea, though Kyiv officials have frequently celebrated such attacks with cryptic or mocking remarks.

US intelligence has previously said the Ukrainian government authorised last year’s car bomb attack that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of the prominent Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin.