A top Russian general was assassinated in Moscow on Tuesday, with reports saying Ukraine was responsible for the explosion that killed him.
Gen. Igor Kirillov, 54, and an aide were killed after a bomb planted in a scooter near a residential building exploded, a Russian law enforcement agency said in a statement, according to The New York Times.
Kirillov was in charge of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons since 2017, according to NPR.
The Times reported that an official with Ukraine’s security service, called the S.B.U., said Ukraine was responsible for killing Kirillov. The Times did not name the official, who said Ukraine considered Kirillov to be a legitimate military target.
On Monday, Ukraine said, Kirillov oversaw the “massive use of banned chemical weapons” during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Times reported that Kirillov was the highest-ranking military leader killed in Russia since its invasion of Ukraine began.
The blast that killed Kirillov took place at about 6:12 a.m. Tuesday and damaged windows three floors up from the blast site, the RIA Novosti state news agency reported.
John Foreman, a former British defense attaché, said the assassination sent “a clear message to all those politicians and military officers responsible for planning, directing and supporting Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine” that they can be reached.
Writing on Telegram, Dmitriy Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s security council, said Kirillov’s assassination was a “terrorist attack,” according to NPR.
Will the war in Ukraine escalate?
He said Ukraine was trying to “prolong war and death” and “trying to justify its worthless existence before its Western masters,”
Ukrainian leaders would “pay in full” for Kirillov’s death, he wrote.
Putin’s top war criminals are no longer safe, even in Moscow.
Wanted for aar crimes in Ukraine, Head of Russia’s Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, killed in Moscow explosion.
Bomb was apparently planted in a scooter. pic.twitter.com/1xnmCCZczY
— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) December 17, 2024
Russia said Wednesday it had detained an Uzbek man in connection with the assassination, according to Reuters.
Video disseminated by Russian authorities showed the man saying Ukraine’s security services were to pay him $100,000 for the assassination.
“We see that the Kyiv regime has taken responsibility once again for a new terrorist attack. All these S.B.U. losers and the mad Kyiv regime are all tools managed by the Anglo-Saxons,” Russian Foreign Ministry representative Maria Zakharova said, using a term Russia uses to describe the United States and Britain.
“They are the main beneficiaries of Kyiv’s terrorism,” she said.
American and British officials said they did not know about the attack ahead of time.
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