Russian general Igor Kirillov and his aide were killed in an explosion in Moscow, claimed by kyiv.
“An unprecedented crime.” Early this Tuesday, December 17, General Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian radiological, chemical and biological defense forces, was killed in an explosion in front of an apartment building in the heart of Moscow. The assistant who accompanied him was also killed.
“Igor Kirillov and his assistant were killed” in the explosion caused by the triggering of an explosive device, announced the Russian Investigative Committee, which also declared that an investigation into “assassination”, “attack” and “arms trafficking” was opened.
• Who was Igor Kirillov
Born in 1970 in Kostroma, in the north-east of Russia, Igor Anatolievich Kirillov had served in the armed forces of the USSR since 1987. Hailed by the President of the Duma Vyacheslav Volodin as being a “patriot” and a “professional soldier “, Igor Kirillov became known on the international scene for his speeches against Ukraine and against Western states.
But also for criticized comments, making him an “important spokesperson for Kremlin disinformation”, according to the British Foreign Office, recalls the BBC. Before becoming the head of the Russian army’s nuclear forces, Igor Kirillov headed the Timoshenko Russian Academy of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection.
Among his most commented releases: an accusation against the United States of having built biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine, supposed to create viruses for military purposes. An argument used to justify the invasion of the country in 2022.
Aged 54, Igor Kirillov was also known beyond Russian borders for having been accused and sanctioned for the alleged deployment of chemical weapons in Ukraine. In office since April 2017, the soldier was sanctioned last October by the United Kingdom for “deploying barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine”.
kyiv says it has recorded 4,950 cases of Russia’s use of munitions containing chemical agents since February 2023, having injured more than 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers through “chemical poisoning”, said Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN Sergiy Kyslytsya. Russian authorities have repeatedly rejected the accusations, calling them “absurd.”
• An explosion with a booby-trapped scooter
The explosion which killed the high-ranking Russian military officer and his assistant on Tuesday, December 17, was caused by an explosive hidden in a scooter, at the bottom of an apartment building in a residential area, on Riazanski Avenue, in the southeast of Moscow, Russian investigators say. The explosion damaged the entrance to the building.
After the assassination of its senior military official, Moscow promised to “punish those responsible”. “An unprecedented crime has been committed in Moscow,” wrote the Russian daily Kommersant on its website. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev denounces “attempts to intimidate our people, to stop the advance of the Russian army and to sow fear” and assures that they “are doomed to failure.”
A minute of silence was also observed during a session of the lower house of Parliament. For his part, the vice-president of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian Parliament, Konstantin Kosachev, promised that “the murderers will be punished. Without doubt and without mercy.” For the moment, neither the Kremlin nor Vladimir Putin have commented on the subject.
• Ukraine claims responsibility for the explosion
Towards a new escalation of tensions between Russia, which promises revenge, and Ukraine? A few hours after the announcement of the explosion and the death of Igor Kirillov, kyiv claimed responsibility for the assassination of the senior Russian official, claiming that it was a “special operation of the SBU”, the services of Ukrainian security forces, who accused him, until Monday, of “war crimes”.
“Kirillov was a war criminal and a completely legitimate target, because he had given the order to use banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian army,” an SBU source continued to AFP.
He is also the highest-ranking and most publicized Russian military official to have been eliminated in Moscow since the start of the Russian offensive against its Ukrainian neighbor in February 2022.
