Ukraine claims it killed a top Russian WMD general with a bomb in Moscow

A bomb placed inside a scooter parked outside a residential building in Moscow detonated Tuesday, killing a Russian general with a senior role in the country’s weapons of mass destruction programs and his aide in one of the most brazen attacks since the Kremlin launched its invasion of neighboring Ukraine nearly three years ago.

Ukraine has reportedly claimed responsibility for the assassination of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, chief of the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops of the Russian Armed Forces.

Gen. Kirillov gained notoriety for being the main Russian official pressing several charges against Ukraine and its Western allies that NATO leaders said channeled Russian disinformation efforts, including claims that Kyiv was trying to develop a “dirty” bomb and that Ukraine and its allies were preparing biological warfare weapons against Russian forces.

In Washington, spokesmen for the State Department and Defense Department said Tuesday that U.S. officials weren’t aware of the plan ahead of time. Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder referred to the general as a “senior commander within the Russian military overseeing significant capabilities.” 

Ukraine’s security service, known as the SBU, said the Russian general was responsible for the mass use of banned chemical weapons by Russian forces along multiple fronts in Ukraine.

“By order of Kirillov, more than 4,800 cases of enemy use of chemical weapons have been recorded since the beginning of the full-scale war,” the SBU said in a statement on its Telegram social media page the day before the attack. “In particular, we are talking about K-1 combat grenades, which are equipped with toxic irritants — CS and CN.”

More than 2,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been hospitalized with “varying degrees of chemical poisoning” since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, the statement claimed.

“When grenades with a chemical charge are activated, their poisonous compounds affect the mucus membranes of a person, primarily the eyes and respiratory tract,” the SBU said. “In this way, the [Russians] are trying to force the Ukrainian soldiers to come out of the trenches under the direct fire of the occupiers.”

Officials in Moscow have launched an inquiry into the attack, which reportedly killed an aide to the general as well. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said statements from Washington that it did not know about the attack on Gen. Kirillov don’t ring true because the U.S. is Ukraine’s most important patron.

“It’s funny to listen to those who created the Kyiv regime, sponsor it, give it money, and supply weapons without control, declaring their pseudo-innocence,” Ms. Zakharova told state-owned news agency RIA Novosti. “The proof is there. Washington has never condemned a single terrorist act or planned murder committed by the Kyiv regime.”

Ukrainian operatives have carried out several high-profile targeted assassinations of Russian figures since the war began, including a popular pro-war Russian blogger, a television commentator who was the daughter of one of Russia’s top ideological writers, and the head of a prison in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine that held Ukrainian prisoners of war.

The State Department in May determined that Russia had used the chemical weapon chloropicrin against Ukrainian forces on the battlefield in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention [CWC]. Chloropicrin is often used as a herbicide. It was used extensively during World War I before the 1925 Geneva Protocol that prohibited the use of chemical and biological weapons in war.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council and a longtime adviser to President Vladimir Putin, warned that Kyiv would “pay dearly” for the death of Gen. Kirillov.

“This terrorist attack demonstrates the agony of [Ukrainian regime], which is struggling to justify its shaky existence in the eyes of its Western patrons and prolong the deadly hostilities while delivering cowardly attacks on civilians in cities and towns,” Mr. Medvedev said Tuesday, according to Russia’s official TASS news agency.

According to Tass, the 54-year-old general graduated from the Kostroma Higher Military Command School of Chemical Defense in 1991 and the Marshal Semyon Timoshenko NBC Protection Military Academy in 2007, and has served as chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops since April 2017.

Gen. Kirillov also played a leading role in Russia’s propaganda campaign against Ukraine and its benefactors, including the U.S. He accused Washington of a plot to deploy mosquito-bearing drones that would infect Russian troops on the battlefield.

“When bitten, mosquitoes are capable of infecting military personnel with a dangerous infection, such as malaria,” he told RIA Novosti. “The patent description emphasizes that an infected soldier is unable to perform the combat missions assigned to him.”

Such a method of infecting the enemy would have a “significant effect in military terms,” Gen. Kirillov said.

Gen. Kirillov had worked since his appointment to “present evidence exposing crimes committed by the Anglo-Saxons and NATO,” Ms. Zakharova wrote Tuesday on her Telegram channel.

But an SBU official told the Kyiv Post Tuesday that the general was a “legitimate target” in the war.

“Kirillov was a war criminal and a legitimate target. He was responsible for ordering the use of prohibited chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces,” the SBU source said. “This is the fate awaiting all those who kill Ukrainians. Retribution for war crimes is inevitable.”