Moscow — Russia’s security service said Wednesday it had arrested a suspect in the killing of a senior general in a bomb blast in Moscow. The suspect was described as an Uzbek national 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 explosion that killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov. The 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 an absolutely legitimate target, as he gave orders to use banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military,” an informed SBU source told CBS News. “Such an ignominious end awaits all those who kill Ukrainians. Retribution 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 Ukraine’s security service brought criminal charges against him. His assistant also died in the attack.
The FSB said the suspect had been promised a $100,000 reward and permission to move to a European Union country in exchange for killing Kirillov. It said that, following instructions from Ukraine, the suspect traveled to Moscow, where he picked up a homemade 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 location and set up a camera that streamed live video from the scene to his handlers in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. When Kirillov was seen leaving the building, the suspect detonated the bomb.
According to the FSB statement, the suspect faces “a sentence of up to life in prison”.
Kirillov, 54, was the head of the Russian military’s radiological, biological and chemical protection forces. Both Kirillov himself and his military unit were sanctioned by several countries, including the US, Britain and Canada, for the alleged use of chemical weapons. on the battlefield of Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine’s SBU had opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.
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Ukraine’s SBU has said it recorded more than 4,800 occasions when Russia used chemical weapons on the battlefield since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022. In May, the Department of ‘State of the USA penalties announced against Kirillov’s unit, saying the US had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a poison gas first deployed in World War I, against Ukrainian troops.
Russia has denied the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine and, in turn, has accused Kiev of using toxic agents in combat, and Kirillov was allegedly behind the spread of this propaganda.
Kirillov, who had been in his post since April 2017, was accused by the US government of helping to spread disinformation about biological weapons and research.
In March 2023, about a year The full-scale invasion of Russiathe said the US State Department Kirillov had “significantly increased his engagement with the media” to issue repeated and baseless claims that the US government had participated in the creation of both the mpox virus and COVID-19, and that the US “is developing biological weapons capable of selectively targeting ethnic groups”.
“The US government is concerned that this false narrative could be a prelude to false flag operationwhere Russia itself uses biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and then tries to blame it on 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 fired from a distance, according to Russian news reports. Images from the scene showed broken windows and burnt bricks.
Russia’s main state investigative agency said it is investigating Kirillov’s death as a case of terrorism, and Moscow officials vowed to punish Ukraine.