Has Ukraine just carried out another assassination in Moscow?

The Alye Parusa (Scarlet Sails) apartment complex in Moscow’s north-western Shchukino suburb bills itself as an exclusive place to live, and a safe one, too, with cameras, gates and 24-hour security. Neither this, nor his detail of bodyguards, saved Armen Sargsyan when, on Monday morning, a bomb with more than a kilo of explosive detonated as he was walking out the lobby. His leg was blown off, and although he was airlifted to hospital, he died shortly after.

So far, this appears to be the latest in a campaign of assassinations carried out by Ukrainian intelligence. Sargsyan was a rather different figure to the last target in Moscow, Lt. Gen. Kirillov. Born in Armenia, Sargsyan later moved to Gorlivka, a grimy industrial occupied Ukrainian city (twinned, incidentally, with Barnsley) north of Donetsk. He was a criminal-businessman turned warlord, who had acquired the underworld nickname ‘Armen Gorlivsky’ for the stranglehold he acquired over legal and illegal business there.