Russia detains Uzbek citizen for killing high-ranking general in Moscow
Russia’s security service said on Wednesday that it had arrested a suspect in connection with the assassination of a top general in Moscow.
The suspect was described as an Uzbek citizen recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) did not name the suspect but said he was born in 1995. According to a statement from the FSB, the suspect himself stated that he was recruited by Ukrainian secret services.
Lieutenant General. Igor Kirillov was killed on Tuesday by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his Moscow home, a day after Ukrainian security services filed criminal charges against him. His assistant also died in the attack. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack.
The FSB said the suspect was promised a $100,000 reward and permission to move to a European Union country in exchange for killing Kirillov.
Russia has vowed revenge after the murder of a high-ranking general in a Moscow neighborhood early this morning. The Ukrainian secret service has claimed responsibility.
The agency said the suspect traveled to Moscow on Ukraine’s instructions, where he picked up a homemade explosive device. He then placed the device on an electric scooter and parked it at the entrance to the apartment building where Kirillov lived.
Live stream of the explosion
The suspect then rented a car to monitor the site and set up a camera that livestreamed footage from the crime scene to his handlers in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. When Kirillov was seen leaving the building, the suspect detonated the bomb.
According to the FSB, the suspect faces “a prison sentence up to life in prison.”
Kirillov, 54, was head of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical defense forces and was sanctioned by several countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, over his actions in Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. On Monday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.
Russia denied the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine and in return accused Kiev of using toxic agents in combat.
Kirillov, who took up his current job in 2017, was one of the most prominent representatives of these allegations. He held numerous briefings in which he accused the Ukrainian military of using toxic agents and planning attacks with radioactive substances – claims that Ukraine and its Western allies dismissed as propaganda.
According to Russian news reports, the bomb used in Tuesday’s attack was triggered remotely. Images from the scene of the accident showed broken windows and burnt masonry.
Russia’s top state investigative agency said it viewed Kirillov’s death as a case of terrorism, and officials in Moscow vowed to punish Ukraine.
