Russia has detained an Uzbek citizen who investigators believe placed the bomb that killed Lt Gen Igor Kirillov on the instructions of Ukraine’s security service, the country’s investigative committee has said.
The 29-year-old had allegedly been recruited by Ukrainian special services and promised $100,000 and travel to the European Union, the news agency Tass reported, citing the country’s domestic spy agency, the FSB.
The man was arrested in the village of Chernoye in the Balashikha district of Moscow, the news agency Ria reported, citing interior ministry spokesperson Irina Volk.
Kirillov, the head of the military’s chemical, biological and radiological weapons unit, was killed along with his assistant when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter went off as the two men left a building in a residential area in south-east Moscow on Tuesday.
The Kremlin said the Ukrainian “nazi regime” was behind Kirillov’s killing.
“We understand who our enemy is and what they are capable of. This once again proves the legitimacy of our actions during the special military operation,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said.
The investigation was “progressing quite effectively”, he added.
The general’s assassination marks yet another embarrassing milestone for Russia’s powerful FSB intelligence services, which have been distracted by the war in Ukraine and a relentless crackdown on political opposition at home.
Kirillov was the most senior Russian military officer to be assassinated inside Russia. Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service, which accused him of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops, something Moscow denies, took responsibility for the killing.
Russia’s investigative committee, which investigates serious crimes, said in a statement on Wednesday that the unnamed suspect had told them he had come to Moscow to carry out an assignment for Ukraine’s intelligence services.
In a video of the confession published by the Baza news outlet, which is known to have sources in Russian law enforcement circles, the suspect is seen sitting in a van describing his actions. It was not clear under what conditions he was speaking and Reuters could not immediately verify the video’s authenticity.
Dressed in a winter coat, the suspect is shown saying he had come to Moscow at the orders of Ukraine’s intelligence services, bought an electric scooter, and then received an improvised explosive device to carry out the attack months later.
He describes how he had placed the device on the electric scooter, which he had parked outside the entrance of the apartment block where Kirillov lived. Investigators cited him as saying that he had set up a surveillance camera in a hire car nearby and that the organisers of the assassination, who he was cited as saying had been based in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, had used the camera to watch what was going on.
The suspect, who was born in 1995, is shown saying that he had remotely detonated the device once Kirillov had left the building.
He says Ukraine had offered him $100,000 for his role in the murder and residency in a European country.
Investigators said they were identifying other people involved in the killing and the daily Kommersant newspaper reported that one other suspect had been detained.
The suspect’s citizenship of Uzbekistan could lead to a further rise in anti-migrant sentiments in Russia.
Several million central Asians work in Russia, mainly in the construction and service industries. A string of recent terrorist attacks orchestrated by radicalised central Asian nationals has triggered a rise in xenophobia and a wave of police raids on migrant housing centres. Immigration laws have also been tightened.
There was further anger in Moscow over an editorial in the UK’s Times newspaper that described Kirillov’s death as “a legitimate act of defence”.
The deputy chair of Russia’s security council, Dmitry Medvedev, threatened retribution against Times journalists on his personal Telegram channel on Wednesday, writing that the paper was an “accomplices of those who perpetrated crimes against Russia”.
“In that regard, be careful! Because a lot of things happen in London,” Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president between 2008 and 2012 and is known as one of the country’s most hawkish officials, wrote.
Responding to Medvedev’s post, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy wrote on X that his “gangster threat against Times journalists smacks of desperation”.
“Our newspapers represent the best of British values: freedom, democracy and independent thinking,” Lammy wrote alongside a picture of himself reading the Times.
Reuters contributed to this report
