Chastyakov's death immediately raised questions: while Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny noted in his statement that an "unidentified explosive device went off in one of the gifts" presented to his assistant, the nation's Ministry of Internal Affairs insisted that Chastyakov himself pulled at the ring of a grenade, given to him as a present.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs concluded "with a 99.9% probability" that it was a "tragic accident," ruling out an "assassination attempt" or a "Russian trace."
Meanwhile, the wife of the deceased was referred to by the Ukrainian press as saying that the explosion occurred when Chastyakov opened a gift bag with a bottle of alcohol and glasses in the shape of grenades.
"This can't be an accident," Alexey Borzenko, a military expert and deputy chief editor of the Literary Russia newspaper, suggested while speaking to Sputnik. "Why? Well, first of all, a military serviceman saw a grenade as a gift. There are still five seconds left to take this grenade and throw it through the window. And in this very case an explosion occurred immediately. This means that the grenade was without the moderator. Without these five seconds. Such grenades [without moderators] are usually installed on tripwires in combat zones."
Per Borzenko, this was an "obvious terrorist attack" with Kyrylo Budanov and the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine behind it.
"It is clear that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky is closely watching, and his intelligence is reporting to him, what is happening in the leadership of the Ministry of Defense," the expert continued. "Someone must be held responsible for the failed offensive, for all the wasted forces. And, naturally, all roads lead to the Ministry of Defense, that is, to Zaluzhny."
Zelensky's Confrontation With Ukrainian Top Brass
Prior to the apparent "accident" Zaluzhny was reported to be at odds with the Ukrainian president over the latter's plan to proceed with the botched counteroffensive through winter.
In late October, Ukrainian politician Volodymyr Oleynyk told Sputnik that Zaluzhny doesn't want to be scapegoated for the failed Ukrainian advance and that he plans to take a pause and prepare for a spring offensive. Indeed, several months of Kiev's failed counteroffensive claimed the lives of a staggering 90,000 Ukrainian troops, per the Russian Ministry of Defense.
"Ukraine has no means for an offensive (…) and Zaluzhny now professes the concept of defense," Oleynyk explained, adding that Zelensky, for his part, knows that a pause in the Ukrainian combat operation could reduce the money flow from the West.
On November 1, a British newspaper published an extensive interview with the Ukrainian top military commander, who stated bluntly: "There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough." The Ukrainian Presidential Office immediately subjected Zaluzhny to harsh criticism over the "stalemate" remarks. On November 6, a grenade blast killed the Ukrainian top commander's close aide.
"The conflict between Zelensky and Zaluzhnyi is a long-standing one, because they have different views on the course of the conflict," said Borzenko. "On the one hand, there is Zelensky, who did not even serve in the army and does not understand all the intricacies of combat operations and who needs a purely political result. And on the other hand, there is Zaluzhnyi who understands all the difficulties."
"Naturally, Zelensky is looking at the possibility of forming some kind of opposition force within the Ministry of Defense. And if some important people appear supporting Zaluzhny, then they can simply be 'removed'," the military expert assumed. "This does not allow Zaluzhny to form a powerful core within the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine."
To complicate matters further, Chastyakov was the general's third closest subordinate after commander of the territorial defense forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Igor Tantsyura and commander of the forces of special military operations Viktor Khorenko, who were abruptly sacked earlier this year. This is hardly a coincidence, believes Borzenko.
Who Could be Behind Deadly Gifts for Chastyakov and Tatarsky?
Borzenko is inclined to think that Chastyakov's apparent "assassination" was a Ukrainian "domestic" grand design rather than a Western special services mission.
He has drawn parallels between Chastyakov's case and that of Russian military blogger Maxim Fomin, known to the public by his nom de guerre Vladlen Tatarsky. Tatarsky was killed in April at the cafe in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg by an improvised explosive device disguised as a bust of the blogger.
In May, Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence, acknowledged in one of his interviews that the Ukrainian intelligence had been involved in terrorist attacks against a number of Russian public and media figures. However, he did not name names and refused to answer clarifying questions.
"In both cases, an explosive substance was detected, which provoked the detonation," said Borzenko. "Moreover, it was an explosive that went off instantly, but in [Chastyakov's] case it was a grenade. For Tatarsky a bomb planted in a bust was used. A direct explosion was in direct proximity of a person, 50-60 centimeters from the bomb. As a rule, certain high-level explosives are used there. This is synthetic, these are analogues of plastid."
Another similarity is that the explosives in both cases were disguised as a gift that killed a person, the expert pointed out. This apparently suggests that one force could have been behind both assassinations, according to him. "So I say again that it is possible that Budanov from the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine is at the origins of all this," the military expert concluded.