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The Russian security service announced on Wednesday that it had arrested a suspect for the assassination of a senior general in Moscow.
The suspect is described as an Uzbek national who was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
lieutenant general Igor Kirilov was killed on Tuesday by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukrainian security services filed criminal charges against him. His assistant was also killed in the attack. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, did not name the suspect but said he was born in 1995. According to the FSB statement, the suspect himself said he was recruited by Ukrainian special services. AP cannot confirm the conditions under which the suspect spoke with the security services.
The FSB said the suspect was promised a reward of $100,000 and permission to move to a European Union country in exchange for killing Kirilov.
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The agency stated that following instructions from Ukraine, the suspect traveled to Moscow, where he took a homemade explosive device. He mounted the device on an electric scooter and parked it at the entrance to the apartment building where Kirillov lived.
The suspect then hired a car to monitor the location and set up a camera that streamed the scene live to his handlers in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. When Kirilov was seen leaving the building, the suspect detonated the bomb. The suspect faces up to life in prison, the FSB said.
The suspect was arrested in a village in the Moscow region, Interior Ministry official Irina Volk was quoted as saying 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 any chemical weapons in Ukraine and accused Kiev of using toxic agents in combat.
Kirilov, who took his current job in 2017, was one of the most prominent people to make the allegations. He has held numerous briefings to accuse Ukraine’s military of using toxic agents and planning to launch a radioactive attack – claims that Ukraine and its Western allies have dismissed as propaganda.
An SBU official said 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 Kirilov as a “war criminal and a perfectly legitimate target.”
An SBU official provided a video he said showed the bombing. It shows the two men leaving the building shortly before an explosion fills the frame.
Russia’s top state investigative agency said it was investigating Kirilov’s death as a case of terrorism, and officials in Moscow vowed to punish Ukraine.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that it was “obvious” that Ukraine was behind Kirillov’s murder. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Kyiv “does not shy away from terrorist methods.”
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Illia Novikov contributed to this report from Kiev, Ukraine.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
