A bomb hidden in an electric scooter killed a senior Russian general in charge of nuclear protection forces in a blast in Moscow on Tuesday, Russia’s investigative committee said. Spokeswoman for the Russian Investigative Committee Svetlana Petrenko has confirmed this, as per a TASS news agency report.
Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed in the Moscow blast outside an apartment building on Ryazansky Prospekt. The Ryazansky Prospekt road starts some 7 km (4 miles) southeast of the Kremlin.
“Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological protection forces of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, and his assistant were killed,” the investigative committee said.
According to Petrenko, the Committee’s Moscow department also launched a criminal probe into the attack and investigations are underway.
The Business Standard reported that photographs posted on Russian Telegram channels showed destruction: a shattered entrance to a building littered with rubble and two bodies lying in the blood-stained snow.
Radioactive Defence Troops
Russia’s radioactive, chemical and biological defence troops, known as RKhBZ, are special forces who operate under conditions of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination.
On Dec. 16, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) had sentenced Kirillov in absentia for the use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine, as reported by Kyiv Independent.
The SBU further said that “on Kirillov’s orders, since the beginning of the full-scale war, more than 4,800 cases of enemy use of chemical munitions have been recorded.”
Sanctions against Kirillov and his unit were also issued by the UK, over the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine on Oct. 8.
Ukraine has reportedly previously targeted Russian officials who play a key role in Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Mikhail Shatsky, a Russian expert involved in modernizing missiles launched against Ukraine, was shot dead near Moscow on Dec. 12, a Defense Forces source told the Kyiv Independent.
(with inputs from Reuters)
