A senior Russian army official was killed Tuesday in an explosion near a residential building in the southeast of Moscow, an attack claimed by Kyiv, in the midst of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
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Ukraine, for its part, reported on Tuesday the participation of North Korean troops in an “intense” counter-offensive launched by the Russian army to regain control in its Kursk region, partially occupied since August by Ukrainian forces. .
In 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. investigation for “assassination”, “attack” and “arms trafficking”.
General Kirillov, 54, sanctioned in October by London for the alleged deployment of chemical weapons in Ukraine, is the most senior Russian military official known to have been killed since the start of the Russian offensive against its Ukrainian neighbor in February 2022 .
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.
The assassination of Igor Kirillov in the Russian capital was immediately claimed by the Ukrainian security services (SBU) who on Monday accused the general of “war crimes” for having ordered, according to Kyiv, the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops.
“It’s a special operation of the SBU,” a source within the Ukrainian security services told AFP.
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 an AFP journalist 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 loud,” Mikhail Mashkov, a 19-year-old student who lives in a nearby building, told AFP.
“We saw a lot of police and it became clear that something had happened,” said Anastassia Magomedova, a 39-year-old housewife.
Sanctioned by London
General Kirillov was the one who “spoke, during his briefings, about American biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine”, of 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 “deploying barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine”.
On Monday, on the eve of the general's assassination, the Ukrainian security services (SBU) accused him, in a press release, of being responsible for “massive use of chemical weapons” against Ukrainian forces.
Since February 2022, more than 4,800 cases of use of “chemical munitions” by the Russian army have been recorded, assured the SBU, according to which “more than 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers” had to be hospitalized with varying degrees of chemical poisoning over the same period.
Russian authorities have repeatedly rejected the accusations, calling them “absurd.”
“Attempts to intimidate our people, stop the advance of the Russian army and sow fear are doomed to failure,” responded former President Dmitry 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 mercy,” promised Konstantin Kosachev, vice-president of the Federation Council, the upper house of Parliament.
Western chancelleries, for their part, barely reacted.
“We will not mourn the death of an individual who took part in an illegal invasion and imposed suffering and death on the Ukrainian people,” a British government spokesperson said.
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 officials and ideological supporters of the offensive in Ukraine.
