The Russian Investigative Committee spoke of a “terrorist attack” after the death on Tuesday of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.
Published on 17/12/2024 09:05
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A senior Russian army official was killed in an explosion “scooter parked near the entrance to a residential building”Tuesday, December 17, in the southeast of Moscow, announced the Russian Investigative Committee, responsible for the main investigations in the country. A “explosive device” had been placed in the vehicle, before being “activated” from a distance and kill “the commander of the Russian radionuclear, chemical and biological defense forces, Igor Kirillov, and his assistant”.
The entrance to the building was seriously damaged and the windows of several apartments were broken, according to images published by Russian media. Investigators were dispatched to the scene and examinations are underway to establish “all circumstances” of the incident, according to the Russian Investigative Committee, which opened an investigation into “terrorist act”.
Never has such a high-ranking soldier been killed on Russian soil since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. In post since April 2017, Igor Kirillov was sanctioned in October by the United Kingdom for “deployment of barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine”. On Monday, Ukrainian justice opened an investigation against the Russian officer, suspected of being the main person responsible for the massive use of chemical weapons banned in Ukraine. Igor Kirillov had “relentlessly denounced the crimes of the Anglo-Saxons, with substantiated data”defended the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.
