Ukraine Kills Top Russian General In Moscow

A top Russian general accused of using chemical weapons in the invasion of Ukraine has died after a bomb went off at the entrance to his home in Moscow early on Tuesday, investigators said, killing him and his assistant.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, a major crimes unit, said Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the military’s nuclear, chemical and biological defence forces, had died in an explosion caused by a bomb placed on a scooter.

Kirillov is the most prominent military officer to be assassinated since Russia began its full-scale of invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Ukraine’s SBU security service had a day earlier put out a “notice of suspicion” — essentially a warrant — for Kirillov over alleged “war crimes committed” against Kyiv’s forces.

A Ukrainian intelligence official with direct knowledge of the attack told the Financial Times that the SBU was behind the killing.

“Kirillov was a war criminal and a completely legitimate target, as he gave orders to use banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military,” the official said. “Such an inglorious end awaits all."

The official said the scooter carrying the explosives had been detonated when Kirillov and his assistant, identified in Russian media as Ilya P, were near the entrance of a house on Ryazansky Prospekt in Moscow where the driver had come to take the general to work.

Video footage shared with the Financial Times shows Kirillov and his assistant exiting the building and…   walking a few steps before an explosion takes place.

The blast shook the walls of several nearby buildings and sent shrapnel flying for dozens of metres, according to Russian media, damaging several windows.

Kirillov was hit with UK sanctions in October “for the deployment of barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine”, including the toxic choking agent chloropicrin.

The UK said Kirillov was also “a significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation”, a reference to public briefings in which he regularly accused Kyiv of plotting to use chemical weapons and develop a nuclear “dirty bomb”.

Last year Kirillov even claimed Ukraine had plans to launch special US-designed drones carrying “infected mosquitoes” that would spread malaria among Russia’s forces. Kirillov also led Russian efforts to discredit reports showing that Moscow’s ally, the recently ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad, used chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war.