Ukraine claims responsibility for assassination of top Russian army official in 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. General Igor Kirillov, 54, sanctioned in October by London for alleged deployment of chemical weapons in Ukraine, is the most senior Russian military official to be killed in Moscow since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

He was killed with his assistant in the explosion caused by the triggering of a device placed on a scooter parked near the entrance to a residential building on Ryazansky Avenue in Moscow, according to Russian investigators. “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 within this structure told AFP.

“More than 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers” had to be hospitalized

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, as he ordered the use of banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian army”continued this source. The SBU had officially accused Kirillov the day before of “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.

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 2000 soldiers” Ukrainians had to be hospitalized with varying degrees of chemical poisoning during the same period, again according to the Ukrainian SBU.