A Russian special forces colonel has been brutally gunned down at his summer cottage just outside Moscow, in the latest murder of a senior military commander.

Nikita Klenkov, 44, was shot eight times by an unidentified assailant on Thursday morning at around 9.00am, while sitting in his Hyundai Palisade in the village of Melenki.

Police are reported to have found cartridges from a nine-millimetre pistol at the scene of the shooting.

Klenkov is believed to have died on the spot from his fatal injuries.

Initially, police believed the gunman had fired at the victim from a passing Mitsubishi Outlander.

However, the driver has subsequently been ruled out of the investigation, after he was tracked down and interviewed.

The murdered commander was born in Germany and comes from a distinguished military family.

He spent some years working at the 18th Central Research Institute of the General Staff.

The institute specialises in radio intelligence, long-range and satellite communications, as well as coding systems.

The colonel then joined a special forces unit attached to Russia’s military intelligence (GRU).

He later became a deputy commander of the GRU’s Special Operations Forces and was deployed a number of times to Ukraine.

He was also involved in training special forces soldiers for the Russian army.

Police have so far failed to identify any suspect, with many speculating the murder was carried out by a professional killer.

The Russian opposition channel February Morning claimed the killing was most likely the work of Russian partisans.

The channel, which is closely connected to the strident Putin critic Ilya Ponomarev, claimed: “It is obvious that a real specialist was working, who was on foot and went into the forest after a successful liquidation.

“At the same time, he was able to leave the forest belt and not get caught on CCTV cameras.”

The channel added to believe it “likely” that the man had been “killed by partisans”.