A ‘revenge assassin’ shot down a former Russian submarine commander suspected of being responsible for a Kalibr missile strike that slaughtered 27 Ukrainians.
Stanislav Rzhitsky, 42, was shot in the back and chest while he went jogging in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar on Monday morning in an apparently carefully planned hit.
Rzhitsky, who commanded a Black Sea Fleet submarine, is believed to have been killed in revenge for a Kalibr missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia nearly a year ago on July 15, 2022.
Among the 27 victims of the submarine missile bombardment was four-year-old Liza Dmitrieva, who was in a pushchair next to her mother Irina. Irina survived the attack but suffered horrific injuries.
Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska knew Liza, one of the three children brutally killed in the Russian strike, from the filming of an earlier Christmas video.
Russian investigators believe Rzhitsky’s running route was tracked by a jogging app he used, and that the timing of the killing was linked to the upcoming first anniversary of the Kalibr attack in Vinnytsia.
Stanislav Rzhitsky, 42, (pictured) was shot in the back and chest while he went jogging in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar on Monday morning in an apparently carefully planned hit
Rzhitsky, who commanded a Black Sea Fleet submarine, is believed to have been killed in revenge for a Kalibr missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia nearly a year ago on July 15, 2022. Pictured: The devastating scene of the missile strike
Among the 27 victims of the submarine missile bombardment was four-year-old Liza Dmitrieva (pictured), who was in a pushchair next to her mother Irina. Irina survived the attack but suffered horrific injuries
A map shows his frequent route which was posted on Strava, an American internet service for tracking physical exercise which incorporates social network features.
The ex-captain, who became a mobilisation official for Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, was shot four times as he ran near the Olympus Arena in Krasnodar city.
He was hit in the ‘back and chest’ and died at the scene. Two two 9-mm bullets were found in his body.
His watch and headphones were located at the scene, indicating robbery was not the motive, according to news outlet Mash.
The assassin shot Rzhitsky in a place without CCTV cameras but Russian law enforcement issued a picture of a man they say is a suspect in the killing which they believe was ordered as a revenge attack from Ukraine.
Investigators are searching for ‘a middle-aged man in a blue cap’, reported Baza media outlet.
Ukrainian database Myrotvorets earlier posted that he ‘directly participates in the military invasion of Ukraine’.
Investigators are searching for ‘a middle-aged man in a blue cap’, reported Baza media outlet
The victim was evidently suspected of being the captain of the Krasnodar submarine at the moment it unleashed the Kalibr missile hell on Vinnytsia from the Black Sea.
The ex-mayor of Krasnodar Evgeny Pervyshov confirmed: ‘I knew him as the commander of the Krasnodar submarine…
‘He was a true patriot, a good man and a loving father.’
It remains unclear if he was still captain of the submarine in July 2022 when Vinnytsia was hit, but he is known to have unleashed cruise missiles at ISIS during earlier Russian operations in Syria.
The Krasnodar is a diesel-electric submarine built for the Black Sea fleet and designed ‘to fight surface ships and submarines, lay mines, and conduct reconnaissance’.
Earlier, Rzhitsky had captained the Alrosa submarine.
A murder case was launched by the first department for the investigation of especially important cases in Krasnodar, said the Russian Investigative Committee.
Investigators were working at ‘establishing all the circumstances of the incident, as well as the person who committed the crime and his motives’.
Among the 27 killed in Vinnytsia were Kateryna Hula, 24, (pictured) administrator of the Neuromed medical centre which was hit by the missile attack
Liza’s pram was found in the middle of the street at the time of the strike last year – it was spattered with blood from wounds the girl did not survive
Little Liza – killed in the air strike last year- suffered from Down’s Syndrome and arthritis in one leg.
Among the 27 killed in Vinnytsia were Kateryna Hula, 24, administrator of the Neuromed medical centre which was hit by the missile attack.
The centre’s manager Tetyana Kharchenko, 32, was another victim as was Evhen Kovalenko, 25, sound producer for Ukrainian singer Roxolana, who had been due to perform in the city.
Concert organiser Viktor Polishchuk was killed, as were children’s neurologist Pavlo Kovalchuk and neurologist Nataliya Falshtynska, a mother of three.
Russian state TV claimed the submarine hit had been the ‘most productive’ of the war, killing Colonel Oleg Makarchuk, 48, head of the Armaments and Logistics Service of the Ukrainian Air Force, and Colonel Dmitry Burdiko, another high ranking air force commander, as they met in the so-called House of Officers in Vinnytsia.
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