Lieutenant General Igor Kirillo, 54, died early on Tuesday after a device hidden inside a scooter was detonated as he emerged from his apartment block – with his driver also killed
The head of Russia’s nuclear defence forces has been killed in an explosion in Moscow, officials say.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillo, 54, died early on Tuesday after a device hidden inside a scooter was detonated as he emerged from his apartment block, with his driver or assistant also killed. Horrifying images from the scene showed a scooter burnt to the crisp and surrounded by debris, while the entrance to Kirillov’s apartment block was left badly damaged with windows blown out by the explosion.
The bombing – believed to be by a Ukrainian hit squad – came the day after Kyiv had accused Kirillov of overseeing the widespread use of banned chemical weapons against its troops in the conflict zone. Charging him in absentia with war crimes, the Ukrainian SBU said he was responsible for more than 4,800 documented cases of Russian troops using chemical munitions since the start of the full-scale war.
The SBU said Kirillov was “responsible for the mass use of prohibited chemical weapons by Russian militants against the Defence Forces on the eastern and southern fronts of Ukraine”. It added: “On Kirillov’s orders, more than 4,800 cases of the enemy using chemical munitions have been recorded since the beginning of the full-scale war.”
Kirillov, who was head of the Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Defence Forces (NBC), was notorious for a warning that US-supervised Ukrainian biolabs were studying viruses that could be transmitted by mosquitoes. This included US plans to deliver mosquitoes using drones to infect Russian troops. He also counted for an increase in bird flu in Russia by the migration of infected birds from Ukraine.
A major hunt has been launched for the bomber who is assumed to have carried out orders from Ukrainian intelligence in killing Kirillov. Police suspect the bomber used a radio signal and was within range of the scene when the improvised explosive device was detonated.
In March 2022, Kirillov gave a Defence Ministry presentation about alleged American biolabs in Ukraine that are developing projects to spread biological weapons using bats and birds. He also accused Ukraine of provocations using toxic chemicals, including a “dirty bomb.”
In August he said providing no proof: “The facts of the simultaneous supply of toxic chemicals and means of protection against them indicate an attempt to carry out large-scale provocations using the psychotropic chemical warfare agent BZ during the conflict.”
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed Kirillov “for many years systematically […] exposed the crimes of the Anglo-Saxons”, including “NATO provocations with chemical weapons in Syria” and “Britain’s manipulation of banned chemical substances and provocations in Salisbury and Amesbury” and “the deadly activities of American biolaboratories in Ukraine and much more.
He “Worked fearlessly. Did not hide behind backs. He marched with an open visor. For the Motherland, for the truth. Bright memory, God rest his soul.”
