Russia says suspect has been arrested in connection with the assassination of General Igor Kirillov, head of Russia’s chemical weapons unit

Moscow — Russia’s security service said Wednesday that it had arrested a suspect in connection with the killing of a top general in a bomb blast in Moscow. The suspect was described as an Uzbek citizen who the agency said was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.

Ukrainian security sources told CBS News on Monday that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was behind it Explosion that killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov. The claim could not be independently verified, but Russian officials quickly vowed to take revenge on Ukraine’s leadership.

Russia’s Federal Security Service did not name the suspect but said he was born in 1995. According to an FSB statement, the suspect said he was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.

“Kirillov was a war criminal and a perfectly legitimate target because he gave the order to use banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military,” an informed SBU source told CBS News. “Such an inglorious end awaits anyone who kills Ukrainians. Retribution for war crimes is inevitable.”

Kirillov was killed by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter outside his Moscow home, a day after Ukraine’s security service filed criminal charges against him. His assistant also died in 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. It was said that the suspect traveled to Moscow on instructions from Ukraine, 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.

The suspect then rented a car to monitor the location and set up a camera that livestreamed video 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 the head of the Russian military’s radiological, biological and chemical protection forces. Either Kirillov himself or his military unit have been sanctioned by several countries, including the United States, Britain and Canada, over the alleged use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine. On Monday, the Ukrainian secret service SBU opened a criminal investigation against him and accused him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.

Ukraine’s SBU said it has registered more than 4,800 cases of Russia using chemical weapons on the battlefield since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022. The US State Department announced in May announced sanctions against Kirillov’s unit and said the United States had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a poison gas first used in World War I, against Ukrainian troops.

Russia denied using chemical weapons in Ukraine and in turn accused Kiev of using toxic agents in combat. Kirillov is said to be behind the spread of this propaganda.

Kirillov, who had been in office since April 2017, was accused by the US government of helping to spread disinformation about biological weapons and research.

In March 2023, about a year later Russia’s full-scale invasionThe This is what the US State Department said Kirillov had “significantly increased his media engagement” to repeatedly make unfounded claims that the US government was involved in the creation of both the Mpox virus and COVID-19 and that the US was “developing biological weapons that target ethnic groups.” “target groups.”

“The U.S. government is concerned that this false narrative could be the start of a… False flag operationwhere Russia itself uses biological, chemical or nuclear weapons in Ukraine and then attempts to shift blame to Ukraine and/or the United States,” the State Department said at the time.

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.