Updated December 17, 2024 at 12:38 PM ET
KYIV — A top Russian military leader accused of using banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops was assassinated in Moscow on Tuesday. A source from Ukraine's security service confirmed to NPR that the security service was behind the killing.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov had been in charge of the Russian military's nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces since 2017. Kirillov and one of his aides were killed after an explosive device planted in a scooter detonated.
The killing took place near the entrance of a residential building in southeastern Moscow, where Russian state media said Kirillov lived. Video shared on Russian social media, which NPR could not independently verify, shows blasted windows and burned buildings at the site.
Kirillov was killed a day after Ukraine's security service brought criminal charges against him in absentia for using banned chemical weapons in this war.
The Ukraine security service source who confirmed to NPR that it was behind the assassination spoke under condition of anonymity because this person is not allowed to release the information.
Ukraine's security service published an investigation on Monday claiming that Russia used chemical weapons almost 5,000 times on the Ukrainian military since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Artem Vlasiuk, a Ukrainian colonel with the military's Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Directorate, told reporters at a briefing in Kyiv last week about the effects this use had on Ukrainian troops.
"More than 2,000 soldiers with symptoms of chemical poisoning have been sent to military facilities," Vlasiuk said. He noted that the chemicals included CS gas, or 2-Chlorobenzalmonononitrile, commonly known as tear gas, a chemical agent banned in international warfare.
The U.S. has accused Russia of using the chemical weapon chloropicrin, a choking agent, against Ukrainian troops.
Russia denies using chemical weapons in Ukraine and has claimed Ukrainian forces have used toxic agents in the war, which Kyiv denies.
Writing on Telegram, Dmitriy Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia's security council, called Kirillov a "true patriot of Russia" and said his assassination was a "terrorist attack." He accused Ukraine of trying to "prolong war and death" and "trying to justify its worthless existence before its Western masters."
He vowed that Ukrainian leaders would "pay in full" for Kirillov's assassination.
Kirillov was already under sanctions from several countries, including the U.K. and Canada. He is the highest-profile Russian military official to be killed away from the frontline since the 2022 invasion.
Ukraine rarely publicly confirms assassinations. Another targeted killing unofficially connected to Ukraine was the daughter of a Russian nationalist, killed in a 2022 car bombing that investigators thought might have been intended for her father. And a popular Russian military blogger was killed last spring after a statuette he was given at a party in St. Petersburg exploded.
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