A senior Russian general was killed in a car bombing after his son may have accidentally given away his location by posting a picture of the vehicle’s licence plate on social media, according to reports.
The car believed to belong to Lieutenant General Davydov was set on fire in Moscow on Tuesday, June 9, killing the 57-year-old Putin ally instantly. But his whereabouts may have been revealed due to a careless mistake by his son, who is a Russian military cadet.
Davydov was reportedly pulled from the burning wreckage of a BMW X3 and pronounced dead at the scene of the massive blast. His identity has not yet been officially confirmed. Davydov was not thought to own a BMW, but a social media post reportedly from his son Rafael shows the young man posing next to that exact car. The vehicle in the post appears to match the one seen in footage of the fiery explosion.
The post may have betrayed the general’s location to those who wanted him dead. Reports suggest that assassins used the licence plate number, clearly visible in the son’s social media image, to track him down. Initial reports said the dead war chief was 62, but Davydov is believed to be 57. He headed the Kremlin’s defence ministry missile and artillery wing, supplying weapons to Russian forces on the front lines.
The massive explosion in the Moscow suburb of Balashikha on Tuesday morning reportedly had the force equivalent of up to 500 grams of TNT. Dramatic video showed the vehicle bursting into flames from the boot and back seats before rolling into a parked car.
Another car bomb was reportedly found and destroyed in south-west Moscow by Russian authorities. An investigation has been launched into the suspected assassination. Ukrainian authorities have yet to comment on the attack.
The blast occurred less than a mile from where Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik was killed in a car bombing last year. That top Putin war chief, 59, was taken out by a remote-controlled car bomb as he walked toward a Volkswagen near Moscow.
The security lapse comes as a paranoid Putin has moved his daughters into his fortress palace over fears of assassination attempts. Maria Vorontsova, 41, and Katerina Tikhonova, 39, are now staying with their father at his heavily guarded forest palace complex.
The Valdai complex on the Black Sea is protected by dozens of air defence systems, making it one of the safest locations in Russia. The ageing leader has also ordered urgent checks on the country’s surveillance camera network, fearing it could be hacked by enemies and used to track his movements.