17/12/24
Scooter bomb kills senior Russian general in Moscow
A senior Russian general in charge of nuclear protection forces has been killed by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov was killed along with his assistant when the bomb exploded as they left an apartment building a few miles southeast of the Kremlin early on Tuesday morning.
Mr Kirillov had been sanctioned by the UK over his chemical weapons use and is believed to be the most senior Russian officer assassinated since the full scale invasion of Ukraine.
“An explosive device planted in a scooter parked near the entrance of a residential building was activated on the morning of December 17 on Ryazansky Avenue in Moscow,” said the Russian Investigative Committee.
“Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological protection forces of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, and his assistant were killed,” it added.
Photographs posted on Russian Telegram channels showed a shattered entrance to a building littered with rubble and two bodies lying in the blood-stained snow. A criminal case has been opened.
A partially destroyed electric bike was also visible amongst the wreckage.
The bomb contained the equivalent of 300g of high explosive, Russian news agency TASS reported.
Several cars and the first four floors of the apartment building were damaged, it added.
Russia’s radioactive, chemical and biological defence troops, known as RKhBZ, are special forces who operate under conditions of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination.
Ukrainian prosecutors charged Mr Kirillov in absentia on Monday with the alleged use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said. Russia denied those accusations.
The SBU has claimed that Russia used chemical weapons nearly 5,000 times under Kirillov’s leadership.
Britain in October sanctioned Mr Kirillov and the nuclear protection forces for using riot control agents and multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin on the battlefield.
Mr Kirillov has previously accused Ukraine, without evidence, of conspiring to build a “dirty bomb”.
In the summer of 2023, the general also levelled baseless accusations at Washington, claiming the US was supplying Kyiv with special drones carrying “infected misquotes” intended to spread malaria amongst Russian troops.
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