A new video from the moment of explosion in a booby-trapped scooter in a Moscow neighborhood, which killed Russian Lieutenant General and commander of the nuclear protection forces, Igor Kirillov, and his aide, Ilia Polykarpov, has been released online.
In the video, from a local camera, Kirilov and his driver can be seen exiting the entrance of an apartment building early Tuesday morning, crossing a few yards before the electric scooter exploded and killed them on the spot.
Kiev’s secret services claimed responsibility
It was Ukraine’s secret services (SBU) that assassinated Igor Kirillov in a special operation carried out in Moscow on Tuesday, a Ukrainian agency source told Reuters earlier.
The agency could not independently verify that claim, but the source said Kiev considers Kirillov a war criminal and“absolutely legitimate target,” accusing him of ordering the use of banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces in the war.
Kirilov was killed by a bomb explosion hidden in an electric scooter in Moscow, the Russian Investigative Committee said.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was head of the Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, died outside an apartment building in Ryazansky Praspecht, about 7 kilometers southeast of the Kremlin.
“Igor Kirilov, the head of the radiological, chemical and biological protection forces of the armed forces of the Russian Federation and his aide were killed,” the Investigative Committee said.
Photos posted on Russian Telegram channels show the entrance to a badly damaged building and two bodies lying in the snow.
In Reuters images of the blast site, a police cordon can be seen. Russian authorities are conducting a criminal investigation.
Russian nuclear, chemical and biological attack defense troops, known as RKhBZ, are special forces operating under conditions of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination.
On Monday, Ukrainian prosecutors filed charges in absentia against Kirilov, who had been in the post since April 2017, for allegedly using banned chemical weapons in Ukraine, Ukraine’s Security Service said, according to Ukrainian online newspaper Kyiv Independent.
Russia denies these accusations.
In October, Britain sanctioned Kirilov and the nuclear protection forces for using riot control agents and for multiple reports of using the toxic asphyxiant chloropicrin on the battlefield.
Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out a series of targeted killings on its territory since Moscow’s war against Ukraine began in February 2022, as well as using chemical weapons as well.
The most high-profile of these assassinations include the murder in 2022 of Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist ideologue Alexandr Dugin, in a booby-trapped car explosion, the murder of war-supporting blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a 2023 cafe bombing, and the shooting last year of a Russian submarine captain accused by Kiev of war crimes.
