General Igor Kirillov, commander of the nuclear, chemical and biological defense troops of the Russian Armed Forces, was killed in an attack in Moscow. Tass reports it.
“On the morning of December 17, an explosive device exploded near the entrance to a residential building on Ryazansky Avenue in Moscow – said the spokeswoman of the Russian Investigative Committee, Svetlana Petrenko – The head of the Russian troops for radiation protection, 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 in an electric scooter, with approximately 300 grams of explosive material equivalent to TNT.
Petrenko added that the Committee’s Moscow department had opened a criminal investigation into the attack. Ukrainska Pravda publishes a photo of the scooter among the rubble of the stricken building on its website. In another image, two people can be seen on the ground, near a car with a shattered windshield.
A third photo shows the damaged entrance to the building where Kirillov and the other victim were headed. Yesterday Kiev’s military intelligence (SBU) announced that it suspected the Russian general of having ordered the use of chemical weapons against the Ukrainian defense forces.
Images from the scene show the entrance of the apartment building, from which the general and the assistant were exiting, badly damaged with burn marks and broken windows, with rubble on the floor. A woman who heard the explosion this morning told international media that the explosion was “very strong”https://gazzettadelsud.it/articoli/mondo/2024/12/17/ordigno-in-un-monopattino-ucciso-un-generale-russo-a-mosca-kiev-rivendica-oggetto-legittimo-c99cbf96- b910-4ce9-8d9d-b47e38023021/.”At first we thought it might “cement or something similar had been dumped,” says a local resident. “The explosion was so strong that it didn’t look like a construction site. It was very scary.”
Russian investigators have classified the assassination as an act of terrorism: the Investigative Committee declared this, as reported by Interfax. The head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin ordered that the central office of the committee take the investigation into Kirillov’s assassination under special control.
Kiev claims responsibility for Kirillov’s assassination
The Ukrainian security services have claimed responsibility for the assassination of Russian General Igor Kirillov: an intelligence source told the AFP news agency.
“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”: the a Ukrainian source told RBC, confirming that the Ukrainian services (SBU) were behind the explosion that led to the killing of the Russian general.
Just yesterday Kirillov was convicted in absentia by a Ukrainian court for the use of chemical weapons banned in Ukraine. Law enforcement agencies have established that, on Kirillov’s orders, since the beginning of the war, more than 4,800 cases of the use of chemical weapons by the enemy have been recorded.