Overseeing Russia’s Nuclear And Chemical Weapons Forces Made Kirillov A ‘Legitimate Target’ -Ukraine’s SBU
The Oasis Reporters
December 19, 2024
By FP
The explosion had occurred not too far from the Kremlin.
Ukraine on Tuesday allegedly carried out one of its most brazen assassinations on a high-ranking Russian official since the Russia-Ukraine war began nearly three years ago.
Moscow’s Investigative Committee accused Kyiv’s security services (SBU) of targeting Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s nuclear and chemical weapons forces, near a residential building in Moscow.
Authorities said an explosive device planted in a scooter detonated near the building’s entryway, killing Kirillov and his aide.
Meanwhile, Russia has detained an Uzbek man on Wednesday who, authorities said, confessed to planting and detonating the bomb that killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov and his aide in Moscow the day before.
The suspect claimed to have received instructions from Ukraine’s security service (SBU) to assassinate the high-ranking Russian military officer in exchange for $100,000 and residency in a European Union country, Russian authorities said.
Unnamed SBU officials have said their organization was responsible for Kirillov’s death.
Kirillov oversaw Russia’s nuclear and chemical weapons forces and has been accused of ordering the use of ammunition with toxic compounds against Ukrainian positions.
The Kremlin has denied these allegations and in May, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said such accusations were “insufficiently substantiated,” though the possible reemergence of such materials was “extremely concerning.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov accused Kyiv on Wednesday of employing “terrorist methods,” and Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, has pledged “inevitable retaliation” for the assassination.
The Kremlin is treating the incident as a terrorist attack, Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said.
Russian state media called Kirillov’s death a “tragedy,” and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, pledged “inevitable retaliation” against the “military and political leadership of Ukraine.”
Kyiv has not formally responded to the allegations, but unnamed security sources confirmed Ukraine’s role in the assassination to CBS News. “Kirillov was a war criminal and an absolutely legitimate target, since he gave orders to use prohibited chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military,” one source said. “Such an inglorious end awaits everyone who kills Ukrainians. Retribution for war crimes is inevitable.”
The SBU is believed to be responsible for several assassination campaigns against Russian officials.
The United States believes that the agency was behind the 2022 killing of Darya Dugina, a Russian journalist and the daughter of a prominent ally of President Vladimir Putin.
And last month, the SBU claimed responsibility for the killing of Valery Trankovsky, a Russian naval officer accused of war crimes for ordering strikes at civilian targets.
Kirillov’s death is the most high-profile assassination of a Kremlin official inside Russia since Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The SBU said Kirillov had ordered Russian forces to use chemical weapons on the battlefield more than 4,800 times.
Kirillov’s division also oversaw the protection of Russian troops from chemical and nuclear weapons.
He helped develop a thermobaric rocket launcher that the Russian military has reportedly used in Ukraine, and he regularly served as a Kremlin mouthpiece for its propaganda campaign against the West.
In 2023, Kirillov accused the United States of planning to deploy drones “designed to spread infected mosquitoes”—an unfounded claim.
On Monday, the SBU charged Kirillov in absentia for the “massive use of banned chemical weapons” in Ukraine, saying that ammunition with toxic compounds were dropped onto Ukrainian positions to force Kyiv’s troops out of their trenches.
Canada and the United Kingdom had also imposed sanctions on Kirillov for deploying chemical weapons in Ukraine; in May, the U.S. State Department accused Moscow of using tear gas and chloropicrin—a choking agent used during World War I—on the battlefield.
Russia denied these accusations at a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
In May, the intergovernmental body called the situation in Ukraine “volatile and extremely concerning regarding the possible re-emergence of use of toxic chemicals as weapons,” but the agency added that allegations of chemical weapons use were “insufficiently substantiated.”
Reports by Foreign Policy
