Moscow: A bomb concealed in an electric scooter killed a senior Russian general overseeing nuclear protection forces in Moscow on Tuesday, RT News reported, citing Russia's investigative committee. Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed near an apartment building on Ryazansky Prospekt, located about 7 km southeast of the Kremlin.
Kirillov’s assistant also died in the blast, which was triggered by an explosive device placed in a scooter, officials said. Russian investigators have opened a case into the two deaths, the committee's spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said. “Investigators, forensic experts and operational services are working at the scene,” she said in a statement. “Investigative and search activities are being carried out to establish all the circumstances around this crime.”
Kirillov was sentenced in absentia by a Ukrainian court on December 16 for the use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine during Russia’s military operation in Ukraine that started in February 2022.
"Remotely operated": Reports
The device that killed Lt Gen Kirillov was remotely detonated, according to Russia's state news agency Tass. It also reported that the bomb likely contained around 300 grams of explosive material. Quoting a law enforcement official, it stated: "The improvised explosive device had a capacity of some 300 grams in TNT equivalent." Based on a UN blast impact estimation tool, 300 grams of TNT-equivalent explosive can shatter small windows up to 17 meters (55 feet) away or damage brick structures at a distance of 1.3 meters. To cause fatal injuries, the same amount of TNT would need to detonate approximately 1.55 meters from a person, the UN tool suggests.
Who was Igor Kirillov?
Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, said that they had recorded more than 4,800 uses of chemical weapons on the battlefield since February 2022, particularly K-1 combat grenades. During the almost 3-year operation, Russia has made small but steady territorial gains to the nearly one-fifth of Ukraine it already controls. In May, the US State Department also said in a statement that it had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a chemical weapon first used in World War I, against Ukrainian troops.
Kirillov, who was named the head of Russia’s nuclear defence forces in April 2017, was under sanctions from several countries including the UK and Canada for his role in Ukraine. During the almost 3-year operation, Russia has made small but steady territorial gains to the nearly one-fifth of Ukraine it already controls.
(With inputs from agency)
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