A senior Russian general has died after an explosive device hidden in an electric scooter detonated outside an apartment building in Moscow, in an attack claimed by Ukraine that marks one of the boldest targeted assassinations of a senior military official since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country.
Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, the head of the military’s chemical, biological and radiological weapons unit, was killed along with his assistant when the blast went off as the two men left a building in a residential area in south-east Moscow on Tuesday.
A source in Ukraine’s SBU security service said Kyiv was behind the attack.
Kirillov, who was placed under sanctions by Britain in October over the alleged use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, is the most senior Russian military official to be killed in an assassination away from the frontlines since the start of the Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine nearly three years ago.
Speaking at a meeting with senior Russian leadership, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of the country’s security council, said Moscow would avenge the killing. “We must do everything to eliminate those who ordered the assassination of Gen Kirillov, namely the military-political leadership of Ukraine,” he said.
Russia’s investigative committee said Kirillov was killed after “an explosive device planted in a scooter parked near the entrance of a residential building was activated on the morning of 17 December on Ryazansky Avenue in Moscow”.
Footage circulating online, seemingly captured by the dashcam of a nearby car, showed two men exiting the apartment moments before a large explosion that killed them both. Mash, a Telegram channel with ties to Russian law enforcement, published a photo of two bodies lying in the snow outside an apartment building, surrounded by shards of glass from broken windows.
Ukraine’s SBU security service had a day earlier put out an arrest warrant for Kirillov over alleged war crimes against Kyiv’s forces.
Ukraine has targeted dozens of Russian military officers and Russian-installed officials whom Kyiv has accused of committing war crimes in the country. Little is known, however, about the clandestine Ukrainian resistance cells involved in assassinations and attacks on military infrastructure in Russia and Russian-controlled areas.
Russian media reported that investigators were exploring several theories, focusing on how the assassins tracked Kirillov from his apartment, who planted the bomb in the scooter, and the location from which it was detonated.
Kirillov, who had been in his post since 2017, oversaw the Russian military’s radiological, chemical and biological defence unit. Russia’s radioactive, chemical and biological defence troops, known as RKhBZ, are special forces who operate under conditions of contamination.
The UK government in October placed sanctions on Kirillov and his unit “for helping deploy these barbaric weapons” – charges that Moscow has denied. Britain and the US have accused Russia of using the toxic agent chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops in violation of the chemical weapons convention.
In June, Ukraine accused Russia of increasing frontline attacks using prohibited hazardous chemicals and said it had registered more than 700 cases of their use in the previous month.
The UK previously said Kirillov was “a significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation, spreading lies to mask Russia’s shameful and dangerous behaviour”, a reference to public briefings in which he regularly accused Kyiv of planning to use chemical weapons and develop a nuclear “dirty bomb”.
Last year, Kirillov claimed without providing evidence that Ukraine had plans to use special US-designed drones carrying “infected mosquitoes” that would spread malaria among Russia’s forces.
The US said on Tuesday it was not involved in the killing of Kirillov but denounced his “atrocities”. “I can tell you that the United States was not aware of it in advance and was not involved,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. He pointed to earlier US assessments that Kirillov had ordered the banned use of chemicals on the battlefield. “He was a general who was involved in a number of atrocities. He was involved in the use of chemical weapons against [the] Ukrainian military,” Miller said.
Kirillov was also part of Moscow’s efforts to discredit the UK investigation into the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, once claiming that the US orchestrated the attack on the former Russian spy who had defected to the west.
Addressing the attack, a spokesperson for the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said: “It’s clear we won’t be mourning the death of someone who orchestrated an illegal invasion and inflicted immense suffering and loss on the Ukrainian people.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram that Kirillov had spent “many years exposing the crimes of the Anglo-Saxons” in his briefings, including “Britain’s manipulation of banned chemical substances and provocations in Salisbury”.
She wrote: “He worked fearlessly, never hiding behind others, always facing challenges head-on. For the motherland, for the truth.”
According to his biography published by the broadcaster RIA Novosti, Kirillov helped develop a thermobaric rocket launcher, the TOS-2. The Russian military has frequently used the weapon in Ukraine.
Kirillov’s assassination is the latest in a series of targeted attacks on Russian military personnel and pro-Kremlin figures. The significance of his rank and influence means this killing is likely to send shock waves through Russia’s political and military elites.
“The killing of a lieutenant general will be a shock for many within the ministry of defence,” said a former senior Russian defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “He has been very prominent in the media lately, frequently holding briefings on the Ukrainian armed forces and the use of chemical weapons.”
The former official said other senior defence figures were likely to get enhanced security measures, potentially including round-the-clock protection by members of Russia’s special forces. “This will definitely cause a stir,” the former source said.
Last week, Ukrainian intelligence said it had killed a leading Russian missile scientist who had worked on upgrading cruise missiles used on the battlefield in Ukraine. The body of Mikhail Shatsky was discovered in Kuzminsky forest park eight miles south-east of Moscow city centre, though Russia has not yet commented on the reported killing.
Earlier this year, Ukraine said it was behind the killing of a senior Russian naval officer in a car in Crimea as well as that of a high-ranking officer in the GRU military intelligence service outside his house in a village in the Moscow region.
Apart from military figures, Ukraine has targeted prominent Russian pro-war propagandists including Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue, who was killed in 2023 when a bomb blew up the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving.
On Monday, Vladimir Putin met senior defence figures in Moscow where he boasted that the war in Ukraine had reached a “turning point”.
