A senior Russian general in charge of the country’s nuclear protection forces in Moscow was killed by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter on Tuesday, an investigative committee said.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside an apartment building on Ryazansky Prospekt, which is located around 7km (4miles) southeast of the Kremlin. His assistant also died in the blast.
“Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological protection forces of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, and his assistant were killed,” the Russian investigative committee said.
Preliminary visuals shared on Russian Telegram channels showed a shattered entrance to a building littered with rubble and two bodies lying in the blood-stained snow. The bomb that killed the senior Russian figure weighed the equivalent of 300g of TNT, reported TASS news agency, citing law enforcement officials.
Who was Igor Kirillov?
A senior figure in the Kremlin, Kirillov was heading the agency of radioactive, chemical and biological defence troops, known as RKhBZ. He was commanding the special forces who operate under conditions of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination and who are tasked with protecting ground forces operating in extreme conditions.
A day before the attack, he was sentenced by Ukrainian prosecutors in absentia with the alleged use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine said.
“On Kirillov’s orders, since the beginning of the full-scale war, more than 4,800 cases of enemy use of chemical munitions have been recorded,” the agency SBU claimed.
He was using the banned chemical weapons in the continuing war in Ukraine, in the southern and eastern theatres of war, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.
The Russian official was sanctioned by Britain in October, along with the nuclear protection forces for using riot control agents and multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin on the battlefield.
“Russia’s cruel and inhumane tactics on the battlefield are abhorrent and I will use the full arsenal of powers at my disposal to combat Russia’s malign activity,” foreign secretary David Lammy had said in October.
The UK had flagged the use of “barbaric” chemical weapons in the Ukraine battlefield while sanctioning Kirillov and said, “Russian forces have openly admitted to using hazardous chemical weapons on the battlefield, with widespread use of riot control agents and multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin – first deployed on the battlefields of WW1.”
Igor Kirillov was responsible for “helping deploy these barbaric weapons”, the FCDO had said.
“Kirillov has also been a significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation, spreading lies to mask Russia’s shameful and dangerous behaviour,” the office said. “The UK will not sit idly by whilst Putin and his mafia state ride roughshod over international law, including the Chemical Weapons Convention,” Mr Lammy had added.
Various press releases and statements from Russia show Kirillov was also handling Russia’s takeover of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant within days of the invasion.
The Kremlin has not issued a statement on his death and there was no immediate comment on his murder from Ukraine either.
Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out a string of targeted assassinations on its soil since the start of Moscow’s full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022.
