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The Russian security service said on Wednesday that it has detained a suspect in the killing of a senior general in Moscow.
The suspect was described as an Uzbek citizen recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
Lt. gen. Igor Kirillov was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his Moscow apartment building on Tuesday, a day after Ukraine’s security service charged him with criminal charges. His assistant also died in the attack. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack.
The Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, did not name the suspect but said he was born in 1995. According to a statement from the FSB, the suspect himself said he was recruited by Ukrainian special services. AP cannot confirm the conditions under which the suspect spoke to the security services.
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.
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The agency stated that the suspect traveled to Moscow on instructions from Ukraine, where he picked up a homemade explosive. He placed the device on an electric scooter and parked it at the entrance of the apartment building where Kirillov lived.
The suspect then hired a car to check the location and set up a camera that live streamed the scene to his handlers in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. As soon as Kirillov was seen leaving the building, the suspect detonated the bomb. The suspect faces a sentence of up to life in prison, the FSB said.
The suspect was detained in a village in the Moscow region, according to Interior Ministry official Irina Volk, who was quoted by Russian state news agency TASS.
Kirillov, 54, was the head of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical defense forces and was under sanctions from several countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, for his actions in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.
Russia has denied using chemical weapons in Ukraine and has accused Kiev of using toxic agents in the conflict.
Kirillov, who took up his current job in 2017, was one of the most high-profile figures to level these allegations. He held numerous briefings to accuse the Ukrainian military of using toxic agents and planning attacks with radioactive substances — claims that Ukraine and its Western allies dismissed as propaganda.
An official at the SBU said on Tuesday that the agency was behind the attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, described Kirillov as a “war criminal and a completely legitimate target.”
The SBU official provided video they said of the bombing. It shows two men leaving a building shortly before an explosion fills the frame.
Russia’s top investigative agency said it views Kirillov’s death as a case of terrorism, and officials in Moscow vowed to punish Ukraine.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that it was “clear” that Ukraine was behind Kirillov’s murder. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Kiev “does not shy away from terrorist methods.”
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Illia Novikov contributed to this report from Kiev, Ukraine.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
