A bomb attack in Moscow has killed the head of the Russian army’s radiological, chemical and biological defense forces, Igor Kirillov, and his assistant. According to Telegram channels close to the Russian security forces, an explosive equivalent to about 300 grams of TNT hidden in an electric scooter exploded when the soldiers were heading to their official car at dawn. The authorities have not yet clarified who was responsible for the attack, the second in less than a week after the shooting of the designer of the Kh-59 and Kh-69 cruise missiles, Mikhail Shatsky in the Russian capital. Kirillov was known for being the Kremlin’s voice in accusations against the United States for the presence, never proven, of “biolaboratories” in Ukraine that supposedly prepared biological weapons with migratory birds and mosquito-carrying drones for their dissemination.
This is the murder of the highest-ranking military officer to date in Moscow. The attack was carried out at number 2 Riazanski Avenue in the capital at six in the morning. The shock wave broke the windows from the first to the fourth floor of the building and tore off the entrance door, according to the Baza news channel. Three nearby cars were also damaged. According to the investigation, the perpetrator of the attack must have been nearby and activated the device through a radio signal or a phone call.
According to an anonymous source cited by the Reuters agency, the perpetrators of the attack are the Ukrainian secret service. The Russian Investigative Committee keeps the investigation open and has not mentioned any of its suspicions about the authorship of the attack, nor has Ukraine. According to the newspaper Kommersantthe initial classification of the crime indicates that the case will be judged as the murder of a civilian and not a military objective. In addition, the newspaper’s sources declare that it is also contemplated to try the murderer and his hypothetical accomplices for treason.
This Monday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which has prosecutorial functions, had filed charges against the general, in absentia, for the use of prohibited chemical weapons, reports Gloria Rodríguez-Pina from kyiv. According to the SBU investigation, Russia has used this weapon in more than 4,800 cases since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, according to a statement reported on Monday by the local press. More than 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers have had to be treated for chemical poisoning and three have died, according to Ukrainian Colonel Artem Vlasiuk.
Last October, the United Kingdom sanctioned Kirillov and his unit for the use of this type of weapons in Ukraine. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said his country would not “stand by while Putin and his mafia state trample international law, including the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
Kirillov, 54, was responsible for the department of radiological, chemical and biological defense since 2017. He had also participated in the creation of the TOS-2 thermobaric rocket launcher, although his fame came at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, in 2022, by leading the Kremlin’s accusations against Washington for the alleged existence of biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine.
Moscow even presented a resolution in the UN Security Council on this alleged threat. According to Kirillov, the United States had three dozen laboratories in Ukraine and prepared mosquitoes, bats and some migratory birds to spread yellow fever, dengue and Zika among its rivals. In addition, Moscow also accused Washington of designing ethnically sensitive pathogens to attack only the Slavic population—which, if true, would have been just as dangerous for Ukraine. The Kremlin, which also justified its invasion with the “denazification” of Volodymyr Zelensky’s Government, never proved its accusations and the resolution failed by counting only on the votes of Russia and China.
Moscow’s complaints were denied both by agencies specialized in debunking fake news and by Washington. The US State Department stated: “Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has been working with allies, partners, and international organizations to reduce the threats inherited from the Soviet Union’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in the United States. former Soviet states, including Ukraine and Russia […] “The Kremlin does not mention in its disinformation that Russia actively participated in these programs until it unilaterally ceased its cooperation in 2014.”
The spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, María Zajárova, has highlighted through her social media channels that Kirillov “worked without fear.” “For many years, systematically, with the facts in hand, he exposed the crimes of the Anglo-Saxons,” said the senior official before attributing to Washington alleged chemical attacks in Syria and the attempted assassination in the United Kingdom of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. and his daughter. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), linked to the UN, confirmed the London version by which the former double agent, exchanged by Moscow a decade earlier, was poisoned with the chemical agent of Soviet origin Novichok.
Kirillov’s murder comes four days after a top Russian missile designer was found shot in a Moscow forest near his home. Mikhail Shatsky, chief designer of Mars, had created the Kh-59 and Kh-69 missiles and was participating in the renewal of the drone program with which Moscow has been hitting Ukraine for almost three years. According to some Ukrainian media, his death was carried out by the GUR.
Since the invasion of Ukraine began, several Russian public figures have been assassinated on Russian territory and in occupied regions with bomb devices attributed to Ukraine. The daughter of the Russian ultranationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin, Daria Dugina, lost her life when her car exploded after leaving a festival in which her father was participating in the summer of 2022. According to US intelligence, Ukrainian espionage was behind her death. And a year later, a bomb hidden in a statuette killed the pro-war blogger Vadim Tatarski during an event in a cafe and another explosive wounded the Russian writer and paramilitary Zakhar Pripelin.
