Russian authorities said on Wednesday that they had detained an Uzbek citizen after a senior general was killed by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter. "A national of Uzbekistan, born in 1995, was arrested on suspicion of having committed the attack that cost the life of the commander of Russian radiological, chemical and biological defense forces, Igor Kirillov, and his assistant, Ilya Polikarpov," the Investigative Committee said in a statement. It claimed that the 29-year-old suspect had admitted being "recruited by Ukrainian special forces," while Russia’s state TASS news agency said the man had been offered $100,000 and travel to the European Union. The Russian Federal Security Service’s (FSB) press department said the man was "suspected of committing a terrorist act." Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov and his adjutant were killed outside a residential block in a southeastern Moscow suburb on Tuesday morning when a device either hidden in or attached to a scooter was detonated remotely. The pair appear to have been killed instantly.
Ukrainian Secret Service claims responsibility
Sources close to Ukraine’s SBU domestic intelligence agency have unofficially claimed responsibility for the assassination. "The liquidation of the chief of the radiation and chemical protection troops of the Russian Federation is the work of the SBU," an SBU source told several news agencies. The attack came just 24 hours after Ukrainian state prosecutors had officially charged Kirillov in absentia with ordering the use of banned chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, allegedly hospitalizing around 2,000 soldiers and killing three. Moscow denies this, claiming it destroyed what remained of its chemical weapons stockpile back in 2017. The United States and the United Kingdom had previously accused Russia of deploying the toxic agent chloropicrin, with the latter placing sanctions on Kirillov in October.
Previous SBU assassinations
The apparent assassination was the latest and the most high-profile in an increasing series of Ukrainian attacks on individuals connected to Russia’s military and propaganda apparatus. In 2022, in the months following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv carried out a series of attacks on targets it considered to be enemy propagandists, including a car bomb that killed the daughter of ultranationalist ideologue and Putin ally Alexander Dugin. In December 2023, Illia Kyva, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who had defected to Russia shortly before the invasion, was shot dead in a Moscow park. Now, the SBU appears to be narrowing its scope to senior military targets, with one source telling the UK’s Guardian newspaper: "We decided to go after the specialists."
Russia to complain to UN
The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that it will raise the assassination at the United Nations Security Council on December 20. Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said everyone involved in the killing would be found and punished. Article 51 of the UN charter states: "Nothing in the present charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations."
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