A senior Russian army official killed in Moscow, an explosive device was planted on a scooter parked near a residential building

A senior Russian army official was killed on Tuesday December 17 in an explosion near a residential building in the south-east of Moscow, announced the Russian Investigative Committee, responsible for the main investigations in the country. “The commander of the Russian radionuclear, chemical and biological defense forces, Igor Kirillov, and his deputy were killed” in the explosion caused by the triggering of an explosive device, the committee said in a statement. General Kirillov, sanctioned in October by London for alleged deployment of chemical weapons in Ukraine, is the most senior Russian military official to have been killed in Moscow since the start of the Russian offensive against its Ukrainian neighbor in February 2022.

Criminal investigation for assassination opened

According to investigators, the explosive device was placed on a scooter parked near the entrance to a residential building on Ryazansky Avenue in Moscow. The windows of several apartments were broken by the explosion, and large police cordons were deployed around them. The entrance to the building was seriously damaged. “A criminal investigation into the assassination of the two soldiers in Moscow has been opened,” said the Investigative Committee, adding that investigators are in the process of establishing “all the circumstances” of the facts.

Also read:
War in Ukraine: “We must stop this”… Trump wants to talk to Putin and Zelensky to end the “carnage”

“An unprecedented crime has been committed in Moscow,” reacted the Russian daily Kommersant on its website. General Kirillov “was not the leader of the most important participant in the Russian special operation” in Ukraine, the newspaper believes. “But it was he who spoke, during his briefings, about American biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine”, of which Moscow accused Washington, Kommersant recalls, by affirming that the Ukrainian special services were behind this assassination.

“The murderers will be punished. Without doubt and without mercy”

The spokesperson for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, deplored on Telegram the loss of a “intrepid” general, who never hid behind the backs of others”, fighting “for the Fatherland and for the truth.” For his part, the vice-president of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian Parliament, Konstantin Kosachev, promised on Telegram that “the murderers will be punished. Without doubt and without mercy.” In office since April 2017, Igor Kirillov was sanctioned in October by the United Kingdom for “deploying barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine”. Russian authorities have repeatedly rejected the accusations, calling them “absurd.”