A high-ranking Russian general accused of using chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops has been assassinated in Moscow in a “special operation” which has allegedly been claimed by Kyiv’s security service.
Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, who was chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside an apartment building by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter. He died alongside his assistant, Russia's Investigative Committee said.
“A criminal investigation has been opened because of the incident which took place on Ryazansky Avenue in Moscow, and as a result, two men were killed,” the committee said. “The circumstances of the incident are still being established.”
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) carried out the assassination, a source in the agency told Reuters. They said Kyiv regarded Lt Gen Kirillov as a war criminal and an “absolutely legitimate target”, accusing him of ordering the use of prohibited chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces in the war.
Photographs posted on Russian Telegram channels showed the shattered entrance to a building littered with rubble and two bodies lying in the bloodstained snow. Law enforcement sources told Russian media it was likely to be upgraded into a terrorism case.
Russia denies Ukrainian allegations that it uses chemical weapons on the battlefield, and Lt Gen Kirillov, who was married with two sons, had appeared on state TV accusing Ukraine of violating nuclear safety protocols.
Britain in October imposed sanctions on Lt Gen Kirillov and his nuclear protection troops for using riot control agents and over several reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin on the battlefield.
There was no immediate comment on his murder from Ukraine where state prosecutors were reported on Monday to have charged Lt Gen Kirillov in absentia with the alleged use of banned chemical weapons, the Kyiv Independent quoted the Security Service of Ukraine as saying.
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.
The highest-profile cases include the 2022 killing of Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, in a car-bomb attack, the murder of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a cafe bombing last year, and the shooting last year of a Russian submarine commander accused of war crimes by Kyiv.
The troops, known as RKhBZ, which Lt Gen Kirillov commanded are special forces who operate in conditions of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination and who protect ground troops operating in extreme conditions.
