Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday accused Ukraine of committing a “terrorist act” in which the commander of the radiation, chemical and biological defense units of the Russian armed forces, Igor Kirillov, and his assistant were killed. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
“It is now clear who ordered this terrorist attack. It has been confirmed once again that the Kyiv regime does not avoid terrorist methods,” Peskov said in his first statement about the attack that took place on Tuesday morning in the Russian capital. The explosion that killed Kirillov and his assistant Ilya Polikarpov was caused by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter parked at the entrance to the apartment building on Riazansky prospect.
Peskov added that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences over Kirillov’s death, Sky News reports.
According to Reuters, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev criticized Britain’s Times newspaper, which in its article described the killing of Kirillov as a “legitimate act of defense of an endangered nation.” Medvedev said the same logic would mean that Western officials who provide military aid to Ukraine would be a legitimate goal of Russia.
The Russian investigative committee detained a citizen of Uzbekistan
The Russian Investigative Committee announced on Wednesday that it had detained a 29-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan who is suspected of carrying out the attack. During the interrogation, he said that he came to Moscow, where he received an improvised explosive device to carry out the attack. For his role in the murder, the clients offered him 100,000 dollars and a stay in one of the European countries. The Reuters agency, citing the Russian newspaper Kommersant, said that investigators have also detained a second suspect.
Kirillov was the most senior military official to be assassinated in Russia since the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, AFP reports.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on Monday charged Kirillov with war crimes, saying he ordered the use of banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces in the war in Ukraine. The AFP agency, citing a source from the SBU, reported on Tuesday that the SBU was behind the explosion, calling the attack a “special operation” and calling Kirillov a “war criminal.”
Moscow claims that Ukraine is responsible for a series of killings on Russian soil. Ukraine says Russia’s war poses an existential threat to the Ukrainian state and, according to Reuters, has made clear that it considers such killings, which aim to weaken morale and punish those Kiev deems guilty of war crimes, to be legitimate.
