Moscow — Russian security services said Wednesday they have arrested a suspect in the killing of a top general in a Moscow bomb blast. The suspect was described as an Uzbek citizen who the agency said had been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
Ukrainian security sources told CBS News on Monday that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was behind the operation. explosion that killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov. This claim could not be independently verified, but Russian officials quickly vowed revenge on Ukraine’s leaders.
Russia’s Federal Security Service did not name the suspect, but said he was born in 1995. According to an FSB statement, the suspect said he was recruited by Ukrainian special services.
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“Kirillov was a war criminal and a completely legitimate target, as he ordered the use of banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian army,” an informed SBU source told CBS News. “Such an inglorious end awaits anyone who kills Ukrainians. Punishment for war crimes is inevitable.”
Kirillov was killed by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukrainian security services brought criminal charges against him. His assistant also died in the attack.
The FSB said the suspect was promised a $100,000 reward and permission to move to a European Union country in exchange for killing Kirillov. He said that, acting on instructions from Ukraine, the suspect traveled to Moscow, where he recovered an improvised explosive device. He then placed the device on an electric scooter and parked it at the entrance to the residential building where Kirillov lived.
The suspect then rented a car to monitor the scene and installed a camera that broadcast live video of the scene to his handlers in the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine. When Kirillov was seen leaving the building, the suspect detonated the bomb.
According to the FSB press release, the suspect faces “a sentence of up to life imprisonment.”
Kirillov, 54, was the head of the Russian army’s radiological, biological and chemical protection forces. Kirillov himself or his military unit have been sanctioned by several countries, including the United States, Britain and Canada, for their alleged use of chemical weapons. on the battlefield in Ukraine. On Monday, the Ukrainian SBU opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.
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Ukraine’s SBU said it had recorded more than 4,800 cases where Russia used chemical weapons on the battlefield since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022. In May, the State Department American announced sanctions against Kirillov’s unit, saying the United States had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a poison gas first deployed during World War I, against Ukrainian troops.
Russia has denied using chemical weapons in Ukraine and, in turn, accused kyiv of using toxic agents in combat, and Kirillov was allegedly behind the spread of this propaganda.
Kirillov, in office since April 2017, has been accused by the US government of helping spread disinformation about biological weapons and research.
In March 2023, about a year later The full-scale invasion of RussiaThe US State Department said Kirillov had “significantly increased his media engagement” by publishing repeated, baseless claims that the US government had been involved in creating both the mpox virus and COVID-19, and that the United States is “developing biological weapons capable of selectively targeting ethnic groups.”
“The US government fears that this false narrative is a prelude to a false flag operationwhere Russia itself uses biological, chemical or nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and then attempts to shift blame to Ukraine and/or the United States,” the State Department said at the time.
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The bomb used in Tuesday’s attack was detonated remotely, according to Russian media. Images from the scene showed broken windows and burned bricks.
Russia’s top state investigative agency said it was investigating Kirillov’s death as a case of terrorism, and Moscow officials vowed to punish Ukraine.
