Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Armed Forces’ radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops. Kirillov was reportedly killed in an explosion in Moscow on Dec. 17, 2024. (Shot / Telegram)
THE KYIV INDEPENDENT | Published December 17, 2024
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Armed Forces’ radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops, was killed in Moscow on Dec. 17 in an operation of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), a source in the agency told the Kyiv Independent.
Kirillov and another Russian service member were reportedly killed in an explosion on the morning of Dec. 17 in the Russian capital. Ukrainian prosecutors previously charged the commander with using banned chemical weapons in the war against Ukraine.
According to the source, explosives attached to a scooter detonated when Kirillov and his aide were near the entrance of the house on Ryazansky Prospect in Moscow.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims
“Kirillov was a war criminal and completely legitimate target, as he gave orders to use banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian soldiers,” the source said.
“Retribution for war crimes is inevitable.”
According to the Mash Telegram channel, the explosion occurred at around 6 a.m. local time when a service car arrived for Kirillov. The pro-state outlet Kommersant reported that the general and his aide were killed by a homemade explosive device of around 300 grams of a TNT equivalent.
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SOURCE: www.kyivindependent.com
RELATED: A bomb killed a Russian general in Moscow. A Ukrainian official says secret service was behind it
FILE – Maj. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the Russian military’s radiation, chemical and biological protection unit, attends a briefing in Kubinka Patriot park, outside Moscow, Russia, on June 22, 2018.(AP Photo, File)
FIRST ALERT 4 | Published December 17, 2024
MOSCOW (AP) — A senior Russian general was killed Tuesday by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service leveled criminal charges against him. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed as he left for his office. Kirillov’s assistant also died in the attack.
Kirillov, 54, was under sanctions from several countries, including the U.K. and Canada, for his actions in Moscow’s war in Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.
An official with the SBU said the agency was behind the attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, described Kirillov as a “war criminal and an entirely legitimate target.”
The SBU has said it recorded more than 4,800 occasions when Russia used chemical weapons on the battlefield since its full-scale invasion in February 2022. In May, the U.S. State Department said that it had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a poison gas first deployed in World War I, against Ukrainian troops.
Russia has denied using any chemical weapons in Ukraine and, in turn, has accused Kyiv of using toxic agents in combat.
Kirillov, who took his current job in 2017, was one of the most high-profile figures to level those accusations. He held numerous briefings to accuse the Ukrainian military of using toxic agents and planning to launch attacks with radioactive substances — claims that Ukraine and its Western allies rejected as propaganda.
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SOURCE: www.firstalert4.com
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