A ‘revenge assassin’ shot dead a former Russian submarine commander wrongly suspected of being behind a Kalibr missile strike that killed 27 Ukrainians.
Stanislav Rzhitsky, 42, was shot in the back and chest while jogging in the Russian city of Krasnodar on Monday morning.
But the attack, which appeared to have been ordered by Ukraine, did not find the correct target.
Rzhitsky had once commanded the Krasnodar submarine which killed 27 including three children in Vinnysia one year ago this week, but control of the boat had been passed on to Captain Anatoliy Varochkin, 46, before the 14 July 2022 attack.
It came as Russian law enforcement today staged a dramatic arrest of a suspect in the murder of Rzhitsky in Krasnodar.
Sergei Denisenko, 64, was seen cowering on a kitchen floor in his underwear after heavily armed Russian security forces stormed a house in Tuapse, Krasnodar region, smashing the windows.
A pistol and silencer were reportedly found in his possession, along with cash.
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 once 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
Alleged gunman cowers on the ground (left) – and the seized weapon (right)
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
Ukraine had indeed much earlier pointed to Varochkin and one group offered a $15,000 reward for him as being responsible for the submarine strike.
Ukrainian-born Denisenko is believed to be a karate teacher, and to have Ukrainian connections.
The committee said: ‘A man suspected of murdering Stanislav Rzhitsky…was detained in the Krasnodar region.’
He was being interrogated as a ‘suspect’.
‘During the arrest, Denisenko was found to have a pistol with a silencer, from which, presumably, the crime was committed.’ The ‘motive for the murder is being established,’ they added.
He is an ‘honoured master of support’ who travelled in Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Major-General Kyrylo Budanov today issued a statement to deny his agents were responsible for the killing in Krasnodar which he instead blamed on internal Russian anti-war foes of Putin.
‘We know that the roots of what happened yesterday in the Russian Federation must be sought within Russia itself, where internal protest against the war in Ukraine is growing,’ he said.
First rank captain Varochkin was accused of ‘launching missile strikes on peaceful citizens and cities of Ukraine’.
He was named as ‘the terrorist who gave the order to kill civilians in Vinnytsia’.
Varochkin is now Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Despite this, earlier today Ukrainian military intelligence had suggested it had inside knowledge of the killing of Rzhitsky, who lately acted as a mobilisation chief for Putin’s war.
The Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) in Kyiv said that the 42-year-old was gunned down at 6am yesterday with seven bullets fired from a Soviet-era Makarov pistol.
Investigators are searching for ‘a middle-aged man in a blue cap’, reported Baza media outlet
Russian law enforcement staged a dramatic arrest of a suspect in the murder of Rzhitsky in Krasnodar
Sergei Denisenko (pictured), 64, was detained by Russian law enforcement as a suspect in the murder of submarine captain Stanislav Rzhitsky
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 from the filming of a 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.
A map shows his frequent route which was posted on Strava, an American app for tracking physical exercise.
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 9mm 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 police 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 Rzhitsky ‘directly participates in the military invasion of Ukraine’.
But the former commander had left the role before the start of the war, it is understood.
The victim was evidently suspected of being the captain of the Krasnodar submarine, incidentally named after his home city, 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, Russian officials said.
Investigators were working at ‘establishing all the circumstances of the incident, as well as the person who committed the crime and his motives’.
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.
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
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.
