Ukraine’s Security Services, the SBU, charged Kirillov on Dec. 16 with the use of banned chemical weapons during Russia’s military operation in Ukraine that started in Feb. 2022.

In May, the U.S. State Department also said in a statement that it had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a chemical weapon first used in World War I, against Ukrainian troops. The SBU also said they had recorded more than 4,800 uses of chemical weapons on the battlefield since February 2022, particularly K-1 combat grenades.

An official with the SBU said 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 an entirely legitimate target.”

BBC Verify has been analysing social media videos and images from Moscow to try to build up a clearer picture of the blast that killed Russian Lt Gen Igor Kirillov and his assistant.

Ukrainian sources say they carried out the attack on the senior commander, who has overseen Russia's Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection troops since 2017. He was sanctioned by the UK in October and accused of being a "significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation".

Lt Gen Kirillov was leaving a modern apartment building in south-east Moscow early on Tuesday when the device hidden in a parked scooter was detonated, Russia's Investigations Committee - the country's equivalent of the FBI - said.

Footage authenticated by BBC Verify shows two people leaving the building before an explosion next to the entrance. Their clothes are the same colour as those on the bodies pictured in the aftermath.

Moscow: A top Russian general accused by Ukraine of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops was assassinated in Moscow by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service in the most high-profile killing of its kind.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside an apartment building along with his assistant when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter went off, Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said.

An SBU source confirmed to Reuters that the Ukrainian intelligence agency had been behind the hit. “The liquidation of the chief of the radiation and chemical protection troops of the Russian Federation is the work of the SBU,” the source said.

The source said that a scooter containing explosives was detonated, killing both Kirillov and his aide, as they stepped out of a building on Ryazansky Prospekt in Moscow.
https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/bomb-kills-russian-general-in-charge-of-nuclear-forces-in-moscow-reports-20241217-p5kz4g.html