Russia: a senior military official killed in Moscow in an attack claimed in kyiv

A senior Russian army official was killed Tuesday in an explosion near a residential building in southeastern Moscow, a bomb attack claimed by kyiv, in the midst of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.

To Moscow, the commander of the Russian radiological, chemical and biological defense forces, Igor Kirillov, and his assistant were killed in the explosion of a device, announced the Russian Investigative Committee, which opened an investigation to murder, attack et arms trafficking.

Ukraine, for its part, reported on Tuesday the participation of North Korean troops in a counter-offensive intense launched by the Russian army to regain control in its Kursk region, a small part of which has been occupied since August by Ukrainian forces.

The unit he led does not deal with the nuclear arsenal held by Russia.

The Kremlin and Vladimir Putin have not commented on the subject at this stage, but Russian diplomacy has accused the West of being accomplices of Ukraine because of their lack of criticism of the methods used by kyiv.

Anyone who welcomes these attacks or deliberately ignores them is complicitindicated the spokesperson for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, accusing kyiv’s allies to approve war crimes.

Trapped scooter

Shortly before, a US official indicated that the United States were not informed in advance of this attack by Ukraine and do not support this type of operation.

We will not mourn the death of an individual who participated in an illegal invasion and imposed suffering and death on the Ukrainian peopledeclared a spokesperson for the British government.

The assassination of Igor Kirillov in the Russian capital was immediately claimed in kyiv by a source within the Ukrainian security services (SBU) who on Monday accused the general of war crimes.

This is a special operation of SBUsaid to theAFP this source.

According to Russian investigators, the explosive device was a booby-trapped scooter parked near the entrance to a residential building on Ryazansky Avenue in Moscow.

According to a journalist from theAFP On site, the windows of several apartments were broken by the explosion, and a cordon of police was deployed in the surrounding area. The entrance to the building was heavily damaged.

The sound of the explosion was very loudsaid Mikhail Mashkov, a 19-year-old student, who lives in a neighboring building.

We saw a lot of police and it became clear that something had happenedconfided Anastassia Magomedova, a 39-year-old housewife.

General Kirillov was the one who spoke during his briefings about American biological weapons laboratories in Ukraineof which Moscow accuses Washington, recalls the newspaper Kommersant on his site.

In office since April 2017, Igor Kirillov was sanctioned in October by the United Kingdom for deployment of barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine.

Intimidate

Monday, on the eve of the general’s assassination, the SBU had accused him, in a press release, of being responsible formassive use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces.

Since February 2022, more than 4,800 use cases of chemical munitions by the Russian army were recorded, assured the SBUdepending on who more than 2000 soldiers Ukrainians required hospitalization with varying degrees of chemical poisoning over the same period.

Russian authorities have repeatedly rejected these accusations, calling themabsurd.

Attempts to intimidate our people, stop the advance of the Russian army and sow fear are doomed to failurereacted former President Dmitri Medvedev, current vice-president of the Russian Security Council. A minute of silence was observed in the Duma, the lower house of Parliament.

The murderers will be punished, without doubt and without mercypromised Konstantin Kosachev, vice-president of the Federation Council, the upper house of Parliament.

Ukraine has claimed responsibility for or has been attributed to several assassinations in Russia and in the occupied territories since 2022, which have notably targeted military or political leaders and ideological supporters of the offensive in Ukraine.