A top Russian general was assassinated in Moscow Tuesday morning by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service.
Russia's Investigative Committee said Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, was killed with his assistant outside an apartment building by an explosive device hidden inside an electric scooter.
Kirillov was accused by Ukraine of using chemical weapons against the nation’s troops.
Investigators retrieved fragments of an explosive device from the scene of Kirillov’s killing, which they said is being investigated as a suspected “terrorist act.”
The Ukrainian official said Tuesday that Kirillov was an “absolutely legitimate target since he gave orders to use banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military.”
On Monday, Ukraine’s domestic security service, also known as the SBU, charged Kirillov in absentia for his role in directing the use of banned chemical weapons against its forces, an accusation Kyiv had previously leveled against him. [...]
In May, the State Department sanctioned Kirillov’s unit after determining that Russia used chloropicrin, a choking agent, against Ukrainian troops, in violation of Moscow’s commitments under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.
The blast comes a week after the reported death, also in Moscow, of a top Russian cruise missile engineer who helped develop missiles used in the war in Ukraine. (The Washington Post)
Former President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as a senior Russian security official, said Ukraine faced "inevitable retaliation" for the assassination of Kirillov, Russian state media reported.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member