Russia: Ukraine official says bomb in Moscow kills Russian general

On December 18, 2024By Littum

A senior Russian general was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his Moscow apartment building on Tuesday, a day after Ukraine’s security service opened a criminal case against him. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed as he traveled to his office. Kirillov’s assistant also died in the attack.

A body lies at the site where Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical defense forces, was killed by an explosive device planted near an apartment block in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. (AP Photo)

Kirillov, 54, was below sanctions from several countriesincluding Great Britain and Canada, for his actions in Moscow’s war in Ukraine. On Monday, the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.

An SBU official 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 a completely legitimate target.”

The SBU has said it recorded more than 4,800 times where Russia used chemical weapons on the battlefield since its full-scale invasion in February 2022. In May, the US State Department said it had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a poison gas first deployed in World War I, against Ukrainian troops.

Russia has denied using chemical weapons in Ukraine and has in turn accused Kiev of using toxic substances in combat.

Workers load a body of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical defense forces, into a bus after he and his aide Ilya Polikarpov were killed by an explosive device placed close to an apartment block in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, 17 .December 2024. (AP Photo)

Kirillov, who took his current job in 2017, was one of the most high-profile figures to address these charges. He held several 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 dismissed as propaganda.

The bomb used in Tuesday’s attack was triggered externally, according to Russian news reports. Pictures from the scene showed broken windows and burnt brickwork.

The SBU official provided video they said was of the bombing. It shows two men leaving a building shortly before an explosion fills the frame.

Russia’s top state investigative agency said it was treating Kirillov’s death as a case of terrorism, and officials in Moscow vowed to punish Ukraine.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council led by President Vladimir Putin, described the attack as an attempt by Kyiv to divert public attention from its military failures and vowed that its “right military-political leadership will face inevitable retaliation.”

Investigators work near a scooter at the site where Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical defense forces, and his aide Ilya Polikarpov were killed by an explosive device planted close to an apartment block in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday on December 17, 2024. (AP Photo)

Some Russian military bloggers and hawkish commentators made unsubstantiated claims that the United States might have been involved in Kirillov’s killing.

Asked about Kirillov’s death, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday: “The US was not aware of it in advance and was not involved.”

On the sidelines of a summit in Estonia, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he did not have details about the attack, but told The Associated Press it would be understandable for the Ukrainians “to do everything in their power to fight back.”

A senior Russian general was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his Moscow apartment building on Tuesday, a day after Ukraine’s security service opened a criminal case against him.

In the past year, Russia has been at the forefront of the war, grind deeper into the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine despite heavy losses. Ukraine tried to change the dynamic with an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, but it has continued to slowly lose ground on its own territory.

Since Russia invaded, several prominent figures have been killed in targeted attacks believed to have been carried out by Ukraine.

Darya Dugina, a commentator on Russian television channels and daughter of Kremlin-linked nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, died in a 2022 car bomb that investigators believe was aimed at her father.

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – Investigators work at the site where Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical defense forces, and his assistant Ilya Polikarpov were killed by an explosive device planted close to an apartment block in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday December 17, 2024. (AP Photo)

Vladlen Tatarsky, a popular military blogger, died in April 2023 when a statuette given to him at a party in St. Petersburg, exploded. A Russian woman who said she presented the figure on the orders of a contact in Ukraine was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

In December 2023, Illia Kyva, a former pro-Moscow Ukrainian lawmaker who fled to Russia, was shot dead near Moscow. Ukrainian military intelligence praised the killing and warned that other “Ukrainian traitors” would share the same fate.

On December 9, a bomb planted under a car in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk killed Sergei Yevsyukov, the former head of Olenivka prison, where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war died in a July 2022 missile attack. Another person was injured in the blast . Russian authorities said they detained a suspect in the attack.

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Associated Press writer Illia Novikov contributed from Kiev, Ukraine.