kyiv claims assassination of Russian general

Top military official Igor Kirillov was killed Tuesday morning in an explosion at a residential building in southeastern Moscow.

The Ukrainian security services (SBU) claimed responsibility for the assassination of a senior Russian army official on Tuesday morning in an explosion in Moscow, a source within the SBU told AFP.

“Today’s bomb attack against Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, commander of the radiological, chemical and biological defense troops of the Russian Armed Forces, is a special operation of the SBU,” the source said.

According to her, the explosion occurred as the general and his assistant entered the building. “Kirillov was a war criminal and a completely legitimate target because he ordered the use of banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian army,” the source continued.

The SBU had officially accused Kirillov the day before of a “war crime” for having ordered, according to kyiv, the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops in eastern and southern Ukraine. Claims that AFP was unable to verify

“The commander of the Russian radionuclear, chemical and biological defense forces, Igor Kirillov, and his assistant were killed” in the explosion caused by the triggering of an explosive device, the committee said in a statement.

Pomegranates with toxic substances

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.

Since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, more than 4,800 cases of use of “chemical munitions” by the Russian army have been recorded, the SBU said in a press release.

These are most often grenades with toxic substances having irritating effects that Russian forces threw, according to kyiv, on Ukrainian positions in order to force soldiers to come out in front of Russian fire, according to the same source.

“More than 2,000 military personnel” from Ukraine had to be hospitalized with varying degrees of chemical poisoning during the same period, according to the Ukrainian SBU.(ats)

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