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Moscow: Russian authorities have detained an Uzbekistan national on suspicion of killing a top general in a Moscow bomb attack, and said he’d been recruited by Ukrainian security services to carry out the assassination.
The detainee was promised $US100,000 ($158,000) and safe passage to a European country if he helped plant the explosive device that killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s radiological, chemical and biological defence forces, the Investigative Committee in Moscow said in a statement Wednesday on messaging platform Telegram.
Investigators stand at the site where Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces, and his assistant, Ilya Polikarpov, were killed by an explosive device.Credit: AP
Kirillov and his assistant were killed when the bomb planted on a scooter detonated near the entrance to an apartment building in Moscow on Tuesday. He is the most senior Russian commander to be assassinated deep inside Russia since the Kremlin began its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The Uzbek citizen received the device on instructions from Ukrainian agents and placed it on the scooter, according to the Investigative Committee. He also rented a car to install a video surveillance camera that was used by organisers of the attack to monitor the entrance to the building from the Ukrainian city of Dnipro and to detonate the device remotely, it said.
The assassination came a day after Ukraine’s SBU security service accused Kirillov of ordering the “massive use” of banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops in the country’s east and south, saying there had been more than 4800 cases in a statement on its Telegram channel.
Ukraine hasn’t commented on the detention so far. A person in Ukraine familiar with the operation who spoke on condition of anonymity on Tuesday said the SBU was behind the killing.
Igor Kirillov, head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defence Forces, speaks at a briefing in Moscow, Russia.Credit: AP
Russia’s Federal Security Service said it was part of a joint operation with the Investigative Committee and the Interior Ministry to detain the suspect. Other people involved in organising the killing were still being identified, the Investigative Committee said.
Kirillov was known to the Russian public from his regular briefings at the Defence Ministry. The general was sanctioned by the UK in October for the use of chemical weapons. The UK also accused Kirillov of “spreading lies to mask Russia’s shameful and dangerous behaviour”.