Ukrainian hitmen and saboteurs have been able to strike in the Russian capital several times
BBC | Published December 18, 2024
It is striking how elaborate the operation was. Explosives were hidden in an electric scooter and they were detonated by remote control, Ukrainian sources have told the BBC.
The victim, Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, is believed be the highest-ranking military official killed beyond the combat zone since its full-scale invasion began.
His assassination has shocked Russia’s military and political establishment. Sources from Ukraine’s SBU security service let it be known they were behind it.
There have been numerous Ukrainian operations targeting Russia’s forces on Ukrainian territory.
But the fact that Ukrainian intelligence can target the head of Russia’s military’s radiation, biological and chemical protection forces outside his home in south-eastern Moscow raises questions about Russian security and how far Ukraine’s capabilities can extend.
Choosing a scooter for the attack was a smart move. They lie abandoned all over the place on Moscow’s streets and attract little attention.
But as they detonated the device at precisely the right moment, in this case when Gen Kirillov was leaving his apartment block alongside his aide, the perpetrators must have had some sort of visual surveillance – either monitoring via camera or watching it in person.
It’s thought that his murder was not the SBU’s first on the streets of Russia’s biggest cities, so earlier attacks on politicians and military officials in Russia can shed some light on how such operations have been carried out.
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SOURCE: www.bbc.com
RELATED: The killing of a Russian general shows Ukraine’s spies remain lethal
Igor Kirillov was accused of ordering the use of chemical weapons
THE ECONOMIST | Published December 18, 2024
UKRAINE’S DOMESTIC security service, known as the SBU, wasted no time. On December 16th the SBU accused General Igor Kirillov, the man in charge of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, of the “mass use” of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine. A day later Mr Kirillov was dead, the victim of an early-morning explosion near a residential building in Moscow. Footage shared online showed two bodies, presumably those of the general and his aide, who also died in the attack, sprawled on the pavement alongside a burnt-out electric scooter.
A source in the SBU claimed the agency was responsible for the attack, in which explosives fastened to the scooter were detonated remotely when Mr Kirillov and his driver approached their car. The general “was a war criminal and a perfectly legitimate target”, the source said. “Such a disgraceful end awaits all those who kill Ukrainians.” The blast was small as such things go: an improvised explosive device containing the equivalent of approximately 300g of TNT.
Ukrainian officials say they hold Mr Kirillov responsible for 4,800 incidents involving the use of chemical munitions against the country’s forces since the start of the war. Over 2,000 troops have been hospitalised as a result of such attacks, they claim, and three have died.
Earlier this year, Britain placed sanctions on the general for overseeing the use of banned weapons and spreading disinformation. Mr Kirillov had appeared regularly on Russian television since the start of the war, making baseless allegations that Ukraine was developing chemical and biological weapons and that America had set up military biolabs in Ukraine.
Mr Kirillov’s assassination may be the most brazen and high-profile carried out by the Ukrainians to date. But it is not the first. The SBU’s secretive fifth counter-intelligence directorate, which has a mandate to conduct targeted killing abroad, and HUR, Ukraine’s military-intelligence agency, are both active on Russian soil. The two agencies have sophisticated networks and ways of working inside the country. Their most recent prior target was probably Mikhail Shatsky, a weapons expert who helped Russia modernise the cruise missiles used against Ukraine and who was gunned down near his home last week.
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SOURCE: www.economist.com
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