A Russian general who headed the country’s nuclear and chemical defense forces has been killed in an explosion in Moscow.
Lt. General Igor Kirillov, 54, was leaving a residential block on Tuesday when an explosive device hidden in a scooter detonated, killing him and his assistant, officials cited by The Associated Press said.
An official at Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said the agency was behind the attack. The individual, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described Kirillov as a “war criminal and an entirely legitimate target,” according to AP.
The explosion took place on Ryazansky Prospekt, roughly seven miles southeast of the Kremlin. Images from the scene showed the building’s damaged entrance, broken windows and rubble strewn across the ground. Two bodies lie in the bloodstained snow next to the entrance.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian investigative committee and Ukraine’s defense ministry for comment.

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Kirillov headed Russia’s nuclear, biological, and chemical defense forces, known as RKhBZ. He was charged in Ukraine in absentia on Monday for the use of banned chemical weapons in the war started by Moscow and had also been sanctioned by the U.K. and other countries for his role in Russia’s use of the weapons.
The SBU has accused Russia of using chemical weapons more than 4,800 times over the course of the war.
Kirillov had headed Russia’s nuclear protection forces since 2017 and also reportedly helped to introduce the TOS-2 “Tosochka” multiple rocket launcher, capable of using thermobaric warheads.
Soon after the start of the war in Ukraine, he presented documents in March 2022 that claimed Pentagon-backed biolabs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons using bats and birds.
The U.K. had accused Kirillov of being “a significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation, spreading lies to mask Russia’s shameful and dangerous behavior.”
Russian state news agency Tass said that the device that killed Kirillov was remotely operated and had a capacity equivalent to 300 grams of TNT, which would be enough to break windows from around 55 feet away.
Svetlana Petrenko, from Russia’s Investigative Committee, said that terrorism and murder cases had been opened, according to Tass.
Kyiv has previously targeted Russian officials closely linked to Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
Mikhail Shatsky, who helped modernize missiles launched against Ukraine, was shot dead near Moscow on December 12, a Ukrainian Defense Forces source told the Kyiv Independent.
On September 28, Aleksey Kolomeitsev, a Russian colonel who trained personnel to use attack drones, was killed in the city of Kolomna in the Moscow region, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence service.
Update 12/17/24, 6:00 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with further information.