On Wednesday, Russian authorities announced the arrest of a man in connection with the murder of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the country’s chemical, radiological, and biological weapons unit.
“During the interrogation, he explained that he was recruited by the Ukrainian special services,” Russia’s Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement.
He landed in Moscow on their orders and was given a makeshift bomb device. She claimed that he parked it at the entrance to the residential complex where Igor Kirillov resided and mounted it on an electric scooter.
According to Petrenko, the suspect, who is from Uzbekistan and is in his twenties, rented a car and installed a video surveillance camera so he could post the film online.
State media cited footage from Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the FSB, to identify the suspect—whom officials did not name—as Akhmad Kurbanov.
Petrenko claimed that in exchange for the attack, which also claimed the life of Kirillov’s assistant Ilya Polikarpov, he was promised $100,000 and a place in Europe.
The incident on Tuesday was previously attributed to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
Russia’s Investigative Committee posted a video on Telegram on Tuesday that showed emergency personnel parked outside an apartment complex with a clearly broken entryway.
Kirillov was assassinated the day after Ukrainian security agencies accused him of using prohibited chemical weapons during Russia’s February 2022 invasion of the nation. Russian officials have refuted those claims.
His passing is the most recent in a series of attacks of this nature.
After his automobile was blown up last month, the SBU said they had killed Valery Trankovsky, a Russian military captain who was in command of a brigade of missile ships in the Black Sea.
The former head of a prison that houses Ukrainian prisoners of war, Sergei Yevsyukov, was killed earlier this month by a vehicle bomb in Russian-occupied Donetsk, according to the Associated Press, which cited Ukrainian media.
In October, Kirillov was also sanctioned by Britain, with Russian nuclear protection forces and the general being punished by U.K. authorities for their use of riot control agents and rumors of the chemical choking agent chloropicrin being used on the battlefield.
The British government claimed in a statement at the time that Kirillov was accountable for aiding in the deployment of these savage weapons and had served as a key spokesperson for Kremlin disinformation, disseminating false information to conceal Russia’s ignominious and hazardous actions.
According to state news agency RIA, however, Kirillov, who had held other positions in the Directorate of the Chief of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense from 2009 before heading the force, was defended by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova shortly after his passing.
In a statement posted to Telegram, Zakharova said that he operated without fear. He confronted issues head-on. For the truth, for the Motherland. May he rest in peace, and may his memory be bright.
He had been methodically exposing the Anglo-Saxons’ sins for many years, she said.
The murders have taken place as Russian soldiers have accelerated their advance in the country’s war with Ukraine, particularly in the east.
But on Tuesday, Ukrainian special forces said that they had killed 50 North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region of Russia. This was the first time that the covert communist regime had dispatched troops to eastern Europe.
Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon spokesperson, also stated Monday that North Korean military troops have been killed and injured during combat operations in the region, although he did not provide an exact number of casualties.
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