By Andrew Osborn and Dmitry Antonov
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Wednesday it had detained an Uzbek man who had confessed to planting and detonating a bomb that killed a top general, Igor Kirillov, in Moscow on instructions from Ukraine’s SBU security service.
Kirillov, head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, died Tuesday in front of his apartment building along with his assistant when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter exploded.
He is the highest-ranking Russian military officer killed in Russia by Ukraine. The Ukrainian intelligence service SBU took responsibility for the murder after Ukraine accused Kirillov of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops, something Moscow denies.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which investigates serious crimes, said in a statement on Wednesday that the unnamed suspect had told them he had come to Moscow to carry out a mission for Ukraine’s intelligence services.
In a video published by the media outlet Baza, which is known to have sources in Russian police circles, the suspect is seen sitting in a van describing his actions.
It was unclear under what conditions he was speaking and Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video.
Dressed in a winter coat, the suspect appears saying that he had arrived in Moscow on the orders of Ukraine’s intelligence services, bought an electric scooter and received an improvised explosive device.
He describes how he placed the device on the electric scooter and parked it in front of the apartment building where Kirillov lived.
Investigators quoted him as saying he installed a surveillance camera in a rental car that they said was watched in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro by people who organized the murder.
The suspect, believed to be born in 1995, is shown saying he remotely detonated the device when Kirillov left the building. He says Ukraine had offered him $100,000 and residency in a European country.
Investigators said they were identifying other people involved and the Kommersant newspaper reported that another suspect had been detained. Reuters could not independently confirm the report.
MOSCOW WILL PLAN INCIDENT AT THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said Moscow would raise the assassination at a session of the United Nations Security Council on December 20.
All those involved in the murder would be found and punished, and Moscow would not be intimidated, he said.
“We see that the kyiv regime has once again taken responsibility for a new terrorist attack. All these losers from the SBU and the crazy kyiv regime are tools wielded by the Anglo-Saxons,” Zakharova said, using a term Russia uses to describe to the United States. United States and Great Britain.
“They are the main beneficiaries of kyiv’s terrorism.”
The US State Department said on Tuesday that Washington had no connection to the assassination or prior knowledge of it. A spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Kirillov had “propagated an illegal invasion and imposed suffering and death on the Ukrainian people.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who says Moscow’s actions in Ukraine are designed to protect Russia’s security against NATO as it expands, has not commented publicly on the assassination.
Dmitry Peskov, his spokesman, on Wednesday praised the work of Russian intelligence services in investigating the case and accused Ukraine of using “terrorist methods.”
Former president Dmitry Medvedev criticized a London Times newspaper editorial that called the assassination “a legitimate act of defense by a threatened nation.” He said the same logic would imply that Western officials providing military aid to Ukraine would be legitimate targets for Russia.
Moscow blames Ukraine for a series of murders on its territory. Ukraine says Russia’s war against it represents an existential threat to the Ukrainian state and has made clear that it considers such killings, aimed at weakening morale and punishing those whom kyiv deems guilty of war crimes, legitimate.