At 5:30 a.m. on June 9, a BMW X3 exploded in the Aviators neighborhood of Balashikha near Moscow. The driver — Damir Davidov, head of the rocket and artillery ammunition supply department of the Main Rocket and Artillery Directorate (GROU) of the Russian Ministry of Defense — was killed. According to The Insider, he held the rank of lieutenant general; a number of Russian and Ukrainian media outlets identify him as a colonel. The discrepancy in rank has not yet been resolved.
Not just another "explosion"
Davidov was not a staff functionary with vague authority. According to 24 Kanal citing Russian media, he directly organized the distribution of missiles and ammunition kits with which Russia strikes both the front lines and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. That is, the person who decided how many "Shaheds" and "Iskanders" would be allocated to one direction or another was driving at five in the morning through an ordinary Balashikha — without visible security.
"An explosive device equivalent to 500 grams of TNT was placed under the car's chassis"
Kommersant citing sources
The Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal case without specifying the charge.
Balashikha as an address
In April 2025, in the same city, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik — deputy chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the Russian General Staff — was killed in a car explosion. According to Meduza, in November 2025, a Russian court sentenced Ignat Kuzin to life imprisonment for placing an explosive device in Moskalik's car — according to the FSB version, on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence.
Two bombings. One city. Both — officers involved in planning or ensuring the active phase of the invasion. Moscow has never acknowledged systemic vulnerability in the security of senior command staff.
What this means in practice
- GROU is the body that formulates requests for ammunition production and distributes munitions among armies. The loss of the head of the supply department in the midst of a summer campaign is not symbolic, but an operational problem.
- Davidov, according to The Insider, participated in planning the invasion starting February 24, 2022 — meaning he was in the system from day one of the full-scale war.
- The explosion occurred at the moment he got behind the wheel — a scheme identical to the Moskalik case: a device under the chassis, detonation upon movement.
If the first liquidation in Balashikha could have been a targeted operation, then the second in the same city using the same scheme suggests either systematic intelligence work in Moscow region military circles, or that part of the Russian officer corps received no real protection after 2025.
The question is not who is behind the bombing — the question is whether this series will force Moscow to actually change security procedures for officers at the GROU level, or whether another assassination attempt will go without organizational conclusions, like the previous one.
