Russian General Charged With Chemical Weapons Use In Ukraine Killed In Blast Claimed By Kyiv

A high-ranking officer in charge of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces (RKhBZ) has been killed in an explosion in Moscow that sources told RFE/RL was carried out by Ukrainian intelligence operatives.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his assistant were killed by a bomb concealed in a scooter outside the entrance of a Moscow building early on December 17, Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement.

Kirillov, 54, is the highest-level Russian military officer to be killed in an apparent assassination since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Moment A Russian General Was Killed By A Scooter Bomb In Moscow (Video)

While no individual or group officially claimed responsibility for the killing, a source at Ukraine's SBU security service told RFE/RL that the blast was the result of a special operation by the SBU.

The Kremlin blamed the attack on Kyiv and criticied Ukraine's Western allies for what it called a lack of reaction to the killing.

"The terrorist attack in Moscow was a continuation and development of the spiral of approval by the West of the war crimes of the militants of the Kyiv regime," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told a briefing that the United States was not involved in the killing or aware of it in advance.

But he added that Kirillov "was a general who was involved in a number of atrocities. He was involved in the use of chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military."

Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov (file photo)

The SBU has said Russian forces used chemical weapons almost 5,000 times during the war in Ukraine under Kirillov’s leadership.

The claim could not be independently verified, but Kyiv has reportedly been behind a campaign of targeted assassinations of Russian officials and military officers involved in the invasion of Ukraine.

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The incident occurred a day after the SBU reported that Ukrainian prosecutors filed a charge against Kirillov, accusing him of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops during the war started by Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Kirillov is one of a number of Russian officers and pro-war figures to be killed in Russia and in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. His death came a week after a senior official from a Russian company that develops cruise missiles used by Moscow in the war was reportedly shot dead just outside the capital.

Kirillov figured in footage that was central to an RFE/RL Russian Service investigation which revealed details about a restricted facility outside Moscow that figures in the U.S. assertion that Russia maintains an offensive biological weapons program in violation of the UN Biological Weapons Convention.

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The investigation focused on Russian state media footage that showed then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu inspecting the facility, which was known for its role in the Soviet Union's biological weapons program and has undergone a major expansion. Kirillov led Shoigu on his tour of the inspection of the facility, the 48th Central Scientific Research Institute.

The investigative committee said the explosion occurred outside an apartment building on Ryazansky Prospekt, an avenue in the Russian capital which starts some 7 kilometers southeast of the Kremlin.

Pictures posted on the Russian Telegram channel Astra showed what appeared to be two bodies lying in the snow outside the damaged door of an apartment building.

After analyzing images of a car parked near the apartment building, Astra reported that the vehicle was Kirillov's.

The RKhBZ are special forces who operate under conditions of radioactive, chemical, and biological contamination.

According to his official biography, Kirillov participated in the creation and adoption of the TOS-2 "Tosochka" heavy flamethrower system by the Russian Army, as well as in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kirillov and the RKhBZ were placed on Britain, Canada, and New Zealand's sanctions list in October for using riot control agents and numerous reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin on the battlefield.

Kirillov and his forces were "responsible for helping deploy these barbaric weapons," Britain said at the time.

The Kremlin has called the accusations "baseless."

Kirillov, who according to Russian state news agency TASS was a graduate of Kostroma Higher Military Command School of Chemical Defense, had been appointed to head the RKhBZ in April 2017.

He previously served in the Directorate of the Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops.