A senior Russian general was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment in Moscow on Tuesday, a day after Ukrainian security services brought criminal charges against him. A Ukrainian official said the attack was carried out by the service.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillovchief of the military's nuclear, biological and chemical defense forces, was killed as he left for his office. Kirillov's assistant also died in the attack.
Kirillov, 54, has been under sanctions by several countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, for his actions in Moscow's war in Ukraine. On Monday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) opened criminal proceedings against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.
An SBU official said the agency was behind the attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, described Kirillov as "a war criminal and a completely legitimate target."
The SBU said it had recorded more than 4,800 instances of Russia using chemical weapons on the battlefield since its full invasion in February 2022. In May, the US State Department said it had recorded the use of chloropicrin, the poison gas that was first deployed. in World War I against Ukrainian troops.
Russia has denied using any chemical weapons in Ukraine, instead accusing Kiev of using toxic agents in the fight.
Kirillov, who took up his current post in 2017, was one of the most prominent figures to level the allegations. He has held numerous briefings to accuse Ukraine's military of using toxic agents and planning attacks using radioactive materials — claims that Ukraine and its Western allies have dismissed as propaganda.
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The bomb used in Tuesday's attack was detonated remotely, according to Russian reports. Pictures from the scene showed broken windows and charred brickwork.
An SBU official provided video they said was of the bombing. It shows two men exiting the building shortly before an explosion fills the frame.
Russia's top state investigative agency said it was investigating Kirillov's death as a case of terrorism, and Moscow officials vowed to punish Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia's Security Council, which is chaired by President Vladimir Putin, described the attack as an attempt by Kiev to divert public attention from its military failures and vowed that its "senior military-political leadership will face inevitable retribution".
Last year, Russia was at the forefront of the war, pushing deeper into the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine despite heavy losses. Ukraine attempted to change the dynamic by invading Russia's Kursk region, but continues to slowly lose ground on its own territory.
Since the Russian invasion, several prominent figures have been killed in targeted attacks believed to have been carried out by Ukraine.
Darya Dugin, a commentator on Russian television channels and the daughter of Kremlin-connected nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, died in 2022 in a car bombing that investigators suspected was aimed at her father.
Vladlen Tatarsky, a popular military blogger, died in April 2023 when a statuette given to him at a party in St. Petersburg exploded. A Russian woman who said she submitted a figurine to order from a contact in Ukraine has been convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
In December 2023, Illia Kiva, a former pro-Moscow Ukrainian lawmaker who fled to Russia, was shot dead near Moscow. Ukrainian military intelligence praised the killing and warned that another "traitor to Ukraine" would share the same fate.
On December 9, a car bomb in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk killed Sergei Yevsyukov, the former head of Olenivka prison, where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war died in a July 2022 rocket attack. One other person was injured in the explosion. Russian authorities said they had detained a suspect in the attack.
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Associated Press writer Illia Novikov contributed from Kiev, Ukraine.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
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