Bomb kills chief of Russian nuclear protection forces in Moscow
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The scene of an explosion that reportedly killed two army officers in Moscow, Russia.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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MOSCOW - A bomb hidden in an electric scooter killed a senior Russian general in charge of nuclear protection forces in Moscow on Dec 17, Russia’s investigative committee said.
Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, who is chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside an apartment building on Ryazansky Prospekt, which starts a road some 7km south-east of the Kremlin.
“Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological protection forces of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, and his assistant were killed,” the investigative committee said.
Photographs posted on Russian Telegram channels showed a shattered entrance to a building littered with rubble and two bodies lying in the blood-stained snow.
Reuters footage from the scene showed a police cordon. A criminal case has been opened.
A source in the Security Service of Ukraine told Reuters that the agency killed Lt Gen Kirillov in a secret operation. Reuters could not independently verify the claim.
The source said Kyiv regarded Lt Gen Kirillov as a war criminal and an “absolutely legitimate target”, accusing him of ordering the use of prohibited chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces in the war.
Russia’s radioactive, chemical and biological defence troops, known as RKhBZ, are special forces who operate under conditions of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination.
On Dec 16, Ukrainian prosecutors charged Mr Kirillov in absentia with the alleged use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine said, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Russia denies those accusations.
Britain in October sanctioned Mr Kirillov and the nuclear protection forces
