Russian CBRN Defense Chief Killed In Moscow Bomb Blast
The chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops was killed alongside his aide in a bombing in the early hours of December 17.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his aide were killed by a bomb that detonated when they were at the entrance of a Moscow residential bombing, with Russian authorities’ preliminary investigations pointing towards a bomb planted on the handles of an electric scooter.
The bombing came a day after the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) charged Kirillov with war crimes in absentia, saying he was responsible for over 4,800 documented cases of use of riot control agents by Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.
While Kyiv has yet to issue any official statement on Kirillov’s death, SBU officials that spoke to the AFP, BBC, Kyiv Independent and the New Voice of Ukraine said on condition of anonymity that the bombing had been a covert operation by the agency.
Kirillov was appointed as the head of Russia’s radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops in 2017, but rose to prominence following the start of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as the mouthpiece for Russian claims that Ukraine had a biological weapons program; was seeking to develop a “dirty bomb”; and that Ukraine was planning to use United States-designed drones to disperse malaria-infected mosquitoes on Russian troop concentrations.
In response to Kirillov’s death Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, told Russian press: “This terrorist attack demonstrates the agony of the Banderite regime, which is struggling to justify its shaky existence in the eyes of its Western patrons and prolong the deadly hostilities while delivering cowardly attacks on civilians in cities and towns.”
Last month, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced that an investigation requested by Ukraine had found proof of drone-dropped CS gas (2-Chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile, one of several chemicals commonly referred to as tear gas) grenades, but did not directly attribute its use.
The United States and United Kingdom have both accused Russia of using CS gas and other riot control agents in its invasion of Ukraine, with the UK announcing in October that it was imposing sanctions on Kirillov for his role in their deployment and “spreading lies to mask Russia’s shameful and dangerous behaviour”.