SMOLENSK. Nov 1 (Interfax-AVN) - Deputy Commander of the Russian Strategic Aviation Major General Konstantin Dementyev has been killed in the Smolensk region, Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky, chief of the Air Force press service, told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The general's Lada car came under fire at about 6:30 p.m. Moscow time (1530 GMT) on Sunday near the village of Arkhipovka on the Moscow-Minsk highway.
The general and his driver died at the scene. The second passenger was rushed to a hospital in Smolensk with wounds.
Early reports say that the attackers were using a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
According to Drobyshevsky, the general was returning from the vacation that he had spent in Belarus.
Law-enforcement bodies of the Smolensk region opened a criminal case on murder charges.
Drobyshevsky said that Dementyev had visited Bobruisk in the Mogilyov region of Belarus to see his ailing father. "He was coming back to Moscow on Sunday in a car of Mr. Ivanov," Drobyshevsky said.
The general was on the back seat, and Mr. Konorev was seated near the driver. The fire came from a vehicle moving on the same lane, presumably a BMW or a Mercedes, he said.
Dementyev was born on January 1, 1957. He was recruited to the Armed Forces by the Bobruisk military commissioner's office in August 1974. He graduated from the Tambov higher pilot college in 1978, the Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1989, and the General Staff Academy in 2001. He was appointed deputy commander of the strategic aviation in April 2003.