General Igor Kirillov, head of the nuclear, chemical and biological defense troops of the Russian Armed Forces, died this morning in an attack in Moscow. This was announced by the spokeswoman of the Russian Investigative Committee, Svetlana Petrenko, quoted by the Tass news agency.
“On the morning of December 17, an explosive device exploded near the entrance to a residential building on Ryazansky Avenue in Moscow – said Petrenko – The head of the Russian troops for protection from radiation, chemical and biological agents, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his assistant were killed in the explosion.”
The attack would have been carried out using a remotely operated device, placed inside an electric scooter, with approximately 300 grams of TNT type explosive. Petrenko also reported that the Moscow Investigative Committee has begun investigating the attack.
Ukrainska Pravda published some images on its website after the attack: one shows the scooter among the rubble of the destroyed building, another shows two people on the ground next to a car with a shattered windscreen . In another image, however, you can see the damaged entrance to the building where General Kirillov and his assistant, who also died in the attack, were about to leave.
A woman heard the explosion and, speaking to international media, reported that it was “very loud”. “At first we thought that concrete or something similar might have been dumped – said a local resident -. But the explosion was so strong that it didn’t look like a construction site. It was very scary.”
The Investigative Committee has made it known that, for the investigators, the attack against Kirillov and his assistant is a terrorist act. This is what Interfax reports. The head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin ordered the Central Bureau to conduct investigations into the incident.
Kirillov’s murder was claimed by the Ukrainian security services. This is what an SBU source told the AFP news agency. Just yesterday, the SBU made it known that it suspected that Kirillov had ordered the use of chemical weapons against Kiev’s military. Also yesterday, a Ukrainian court convicted Kirillov in absentia for the use of chemical weapons banned in Ukraine: according to Kiev law enforcement, on Kirillov’s orders, the Russians would have used chemical weapons 4,800 times since the beginning of the war.
“Kirillov was a war criminal and a completely legitimate target since he gave orders to use prohibited chemical weapons against the Ukrainian army. Such an inglorious end awaits all those who kill Ukrainians. Punishment for war crimes is inevitable.” Thus a Ukrainian source told RBC, confirming that the SBU killed Kirillov.
