Video shows Russian sub captain on run moments before assassination

Chilling surveillance video shows a former Russian submarine commander jogging through a park just minutes before he was gunned down by an assassin — as law enforcement authorities announced the arrest of a Ukrainian karate instructor in connection with the cold-blooded murder.

The footage shows 42-year-old Stanislav Rzhitsky, deputy head of military mobilization in Krasnodar — who had previously commanded the Krasnodar submarine in the Black Sea and was blacklisted by Ukraine as an alleged war criminal — running through his local park around 6 a.m. Monday.

A man on a bicycle appears to be following the former naval officer — although he is not believed to be the triggerman.

A short time after Rzhitsky, wearing blue jogging gear, was seen running through the rain-soaked park, he was ambushed by a gunman and shot four times in the back and chest from a Makarov pistol. He died from his injuries at the scene.

It has been reported that Rzhitsky’s killer could have tracked his movements on an exercise app where he shared details of his regular jogging route and how long he took to complete it, reported Baza, a Russian Telegram channel with ties to the security services.

Russia’s main federal investigative body, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, on Tuesday announced the arrest of a suspect in Rzhitsky’s murder, who was identified as 64-year-old Sergei Denisenko, a married dad-of-six former president of a Ukrainian karate federation.

The agency released a video on its official Telegram channel showing Denisenko’s arrest in the Black Sea resort town of Tuapse.

In the recording, heavily armed SWAT officers storm a home where an underwear-clad man is seen cowering on the floor.

Officials claimed that during Denisenko’s arrest, police seized a Makarov pistol with a silencer that was believed to be the murder weapon.

Following his capture, Denisenko allegedly admitted to killing Rzhitsky on the orders of Ukrainian security services, according to reporting by the Russian Telegram news channel SHOT, citing an anonymous source.

Denisenko allegedly said that he had been preparing for the hit since December.

Two days after Rzhitsky’s murder, Denisenko was scheduled to flee to Turkey and then to Switzerland, but he was detained before he had a chance to make his escape.

In a statement, Ukraine’s head spymaster, Kyrylo Budanov, rejected the claim that Ukrainian intelligence was behind Rzhitsky’s killing.

“Statements by some media and politicians that the GUR has something to do with the death of Stanislav Rzhitsky have no basis,” Budanov said.

Writing on Telegram Tuesday, Budanov said that the “roots” of the former submarine captain’s murder “should be sought within Russia itself, where internal protest against the war in Ukraine is growing.”

Ukrainian authorities suggested that Rzhitsky may have been targeted by his own military for refusing to attack Ukrainian cities.

In a statement, the Department of Strategic Communications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine claimed Rzhitsky was “eliminated by his own for refusing to further carry out the command’s combat orders.”

A source told the Russian Telegram news channel VCHK-OGPU that the assassin had chosen “an extremely strange place” to carry out the hit — just a few steps away from the Krasnodar office of the Russian security service FSB and the Alpha special forces’ base.

“According to the investigation, the killer then went to a trolley stop along Kubanskaya Embankment Street,” the source said. “The stop is located across from the fence of the Krasnodar branch of the Alpha special forces.”

Members of the nearby FSB Special Forces Center often jog in the park where Rzhitsky was gunned down, and that entire area is said to be crammed with CCTV cameras, according to the source.

Denisenko, a native of Sumy, Ukraine, has a black belt in karate and previously headed the Shotokan Karate-do Federation of Ukraine.

His friends and associates described Denisenko to the Telegram outlet VCHK-OGPU as a family man who has dedicated his life to practicing karate and training children.

“He’s never even held a gun and his hands, doesn’t know how to use it,” one friend said.

Boris Klimenko, vice president of the Ukrainian karate federation, said that Denisenko is a qualified specialist and trainer who is “incapable” of committing murder.

After the war broke out in Feb. 2022, Denisenko fled to Switzerland with his third wife, Olga, and their two young sons, and received refugee status there.

Denisenko later returned to Ukraine and to repair his bombed-out home in the city of Bucha, which has become synonymous with Russia’s alleged atrocities during the occupation.

In December 2022, Denisenko inexplicably relocated to Russia and applied for Russian citizenship.

After living with friends and family for the first few months, Denisenko settled in Tuapse, where his adult daughter lives, and rented an apartment there.

“Family members say that this whole time, Denisenko seemed upbeat, spoke to relatives on the phone,” the Telegram channel reported. “Despite his anti-war stance, he was not an activist and planned to develop his beloved sport.”

Rzhitsky was suspected of being involved in a submarine-launched Kalibr cruise missile strike at the city of Vinnitsa in western Ukraine in July 2022 that killed at least 23 people, including a 4-year-old girl.

His address and personal information appeared on the Ukrainian website Myrotvorets (Peacemaker) — an unofficial database of people deemed enemies of Ukraine.

After his killing, the word “Liquidated” in red letters had been superimposed on Rzhitsky’s photo on the Myrotvorets site.

But Rzhitsky’s father told the Russian Telegram channel Baza that his son had resigned from the navy at the end of 2021 — before the outbreak of the war — and had been formally discharged, after a delay, in August.

“He didn’t take part in the [war] in any way,” his father was quoted saying.