A top Russian general was killed in a Moscow blast on Tuesday, in what a source from the Security Service of Ukraine told news agencies was a “special operation” in retaliation for the general’s alleged use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops.
Lieut. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who was chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside an apartment building on Ryazansky Prospekt along with his assistant, Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said in a statement.
He was killed by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter, investigators said. The bomb was triggered remotely, Russian state news agency Tass reported, citing unnamed sources in the emergency services.
A source in Ukraine’s SBU security service told AFP that the “liquidation” of Kirillov was “a special operation by the SBU.” A similar statement was reported by Reuters, which noted it could not independently verify the claim.
“Kirillov was a war criminal and an absolutely legitimate target, as he gave orders to use banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military,” said the source, who also confirmed that Kirillov was killed when “a scooter with explosives” detonated as he entered a building on Ryazansky Avenue in Moscow.
“Such an inglorious end awaits all those who kill Ukrainians. Retribution for war crimes is inevitable,” the SBU source said.
Photographs posted on Russian Telegram channels showed a shattered entrance to a building littered with rubble and two bodies lying in bloodstained snow.
Reuters footage from the scene showed a police cordon. Investigators said they had opened a criminal case into the murder of two servicemen. Law enforcement sources told Russian media it was likely to be upgraded into a terrorism case.
Russia denies Ukrainian allegations it uses chemical weapons on the battlefield.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Kyiv would face imminent revenge for the killing, according to the Russian state-owned news service RIA.
Kirillov, who was married with two sons, was himself sometimes shown on state TV accusing Ukraine of violating nuclear safety protocols.
Britain in October imposed sanctions on Kirillov and his nuclear protection forces for using riot control agents and over multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin on the battlefield.
Ukraine’s Security Services charged Kirillov in December with the use of banned chemical weapons during Russia’s ongoing war in that country.
The SBU said that it had recorded more than 4,800 uses of chemical weapons on the battlefield since February 2022, particularly K-1 combat grenades.
In May, the US State Department also said in a statement that it had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a chemical weapon first used in World War I, against Ukrainian troops.
Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out a string of targeted assassinations on its soil since the start of Moscow’s full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022.
The most high-profile cases include the 2022 killing of Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, in a car bomb attack, the murder of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a 2023 cafe bombing, and the shooting last year of a Russian submarine commander accused of war crimes by Kyiv.
Russia’s radioactive, chemical and biological defense troops, known as RKhBZ, which Kirillov commanded, are special forces who operate under conditions of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination and who are tasked with protecting ground forces operating in extreme conditions.