A man has been arrested in connection with the assassination of the head of Russia's chemical, radiological and biological weapons unit, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, authorities in the country said Wednesday.
“During the interrogation, he explained that he was recruited by the Ukrainian special services,” Svetlana Petrenko, a spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.
“On their instructions, he arrived in Moscow and received a homemade explosive device. He placed it on an electric scooter, which he parked at the entrance to the residential building where Igor Kirillov lived,” she added.
Tuesday's assassination marks the latest in a long line of acts of sabotage and covert killings to hit Russia as its war in Ukraine grinds on.
At the site of the explosion on Wednesday bent metal and bricks blown from the walls could be seen and blood in the snow all remained at the scene. As people and cars passed by on the busy street where Kirillov lived, some left red roses.
The suspect rented a car and “installed a video surveillance camera,” so he could broadcast the footage online, Petrenko said, adding that he was from Uzbekistan and in his twenties.
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The suspect, who authorities did not name, was identified by state media citing footage from the FSB — Russia's domestic intelligence agency — as Akhmad Kurbanov.
Petrenko said he was was guaranteed $100,000 and European residence as payment for the attack, which also killed Kirillov's assistant Ilya Polikarpov.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had already claimed responsibility for the attack on Tuesday, although national security adviser Jake Sullivan told MSNBC that the U.S. was not aware of the operation ahead of time and was not involved.
"We do support and enable Ukraine to defend itself and to take the fight to Russian forces on the battlefield. But not operations like this," Sullivan said.
Video published on Telegram by Russia's Investigative Committee on Tuesday showed emergency responders parked outside an apartment building where one entrance could be seen visibly damaged.
Kirillov was killed the day after he was charged by Ukrainian security services with the use of banned chemical weapons during Russia’s invasion of the country, which in February 2022. Russian authorities have denied those allegations.
His death is the latest in a string of such attacks and the most recent move in the shadow war underlying the front-line conflict Russia and Ukraine have been fighting for almost three years.
Last month, the SBU claimed they had assassinated Valery Trankovsky, a Russian naval captain in charge of a brigade missile ships in the Black Sea, after his car was blown up.
Citing Ukrainian media, the Associated Press also reported that Sergei Yevsyukov — the former head of a prison housing Ukrainian POWs — was killed by a car bomb in Russian-occupied Donetsk earlier this month.
For its part, Russia was accused of sending two incendiary devices to DHL logistics hubs in Germany and the United Kingdom in July as part of a wider sabotage campaign to possibly start fires aboard aircraft bound for North America.
While the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, its first land grab came in 2014. It was then when Washington and Kyiv began developing intelligence cooperation, with the U.S. espionage community training the Ukrainian military intelligence agency known as the GUR that has been at the forefront of the country's sabotage offensive, former U.S. officials told NBC News last year.
Amid the grinding attrition the huge Russian army has used to eke out territorial gains in eastern Ukraine, sabotage and assassinations have been two of the unconventional methods Ukraine has deployed to score morale-boosting wins and avoid burning through its limited troops and materiel.
Kirillov had also been sanctioned by Britain in October, with U.K. authorities punishing the general and Russia's nuclear protection forces for the use of riot control agents and reports of the use of chloropicrin, a chemical choking agent, on the battlefield.
In a statement at the time, the British government said Kirillov was “responsible for helping deploy these barbaric weapons” and had also been “a significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation, spreading lies to mask Russia’s shameful and dangerous behavior.”
But shortly after his death, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova defended Kirillov, who also held several posts in the Directorate of the Chief of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense since 2009 before leading the force, according to state news agency, RIA.
“He worked fearlessly,” Zakharova said in a statement published to Telegram. “He met problems head on. For the Motherland, for the truth. Bright be his memory, may he rest in peace.”
She added that he had been “systematically exposing the crimes of the Anglo-Saxons for many years.”
The killings have come during a period in which Russian forces have gained momentum in the country’s war with Ukraine, pushing forward in the east of the country.
However, Ukrainian special forces said Tuesday they had killed 50 North Korean troops in Russia's Kursk region, marking the first such casualties since the secretive communist state sent soldiers to eastern Europe.
Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Patrick Ryder said Monday that North Korean military personnel have been killed and wounded in combat operations in the area but did not specify how many casualties they had suffered.
Keir Simmons reported from Moscow and David Hodari reported from London.
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