Ukraine claimed credit Tuesday for the assassination of a senior Russian general on a Moscow street with the remote detonation of a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed as he left for his office, as was Kirillov’s assistant.
Several countries, including Britain and Canada, had sanctioned Kirillov, 54, for his actions in Moscow’s nearly three-year war in Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.
An SBU official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, said the agency was behind the attack. The official described Kirillov as a “war criminal and an entirely legitimate target.”
The U.S. has been Ukraine’s main arms supplier during its war with Russia, but State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, "I can tell you that the United States was not aware of [the killing of Kirillov] in advance and was not involved.
“Obviously, he was a general who was involved in a number of atrocities,” Miller added. “He was involved in the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian military … in violation of international law on the battlefield.”
Ukraine’s SBU has said it recorded more than 4,800 occasions when Russia used chemical weapons on the battlefield since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. In May, the U.S. State Department said that it had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a poison gas first deployed in World War I, against Ukrainian troops.
Russia has denied using any chemical weapons in Ukraine and, in turn, has accused Kyiv of using toxic agents in combat.
Kirillov, in his current job since 2017, was one of the most high-profile figures to level the accusations against Kyiv. He held numerous briefings to accuse the Ukrainian military of using toxic agents and planning to launch attacks with radioactive substances — claims that Ukraine and its Western allies rejected as propaganda.
Russian news reports said the bomb used in Tuesday’s attack was triggered remotely. Images from the scene showed shattered windows and scorched brickwork.
The SBU official provided video that they said was of the bombing. It shows two men leaving a building shortly before a blast fills the frame.
Russia’s top state investigative agency said it’s looking into Kirillov’s death as a case of terrorism, and officials in Moscow vowed to punish Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, described the attack as an attempt by Kyiv to distract public attention from its military failures and vowed that Ukraine’s “senior military-political leadership will face inevitable retribution.”
Over the past year, Russia, despite heavy losses, has gained territory in eastern Ukraine, even as Ukraine claimed land in Russia’s Kursk region during an August incursion.
North Korean losses
Also Tuesday, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine's top army commander, said Moscow has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian forces struggling to hold the enclave in the Kursk region. He said the Russian forces have also increased pressure in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.
"For the third day, the enemy is conducting intensive assaults in the Kursk region," Syrskyi told government and regional officials in an online speech. He added that Russia was "actively" using North Korean troops who were taking significant losses.
A senior U.S. military official said Tuesday that North Korean troops had suffered several hundred casualties in the Kursk region.
The White House and Pentagon confirmed on Monday that North Korean forces have been fighting on the front lines in mainly infantry positions.
The U.S. military official was providing the first significant estimate of North Korean casualties. Several weeks ago, Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war in Ukraine.
The casualty disclosure came as the Biden administration pressed to send as much military aid as possible to Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, The Associated Press reported. But a senior defense official told reporters Tuesday that the Defense Department might not be able to send all of the remaining $5.6 billion in Pentagon weapons and equipment stocks intended for Ukraine before January 20, when Trump is sworn in, AP reported.
The military and senior defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide a U.S. assessment of the war, the AP reported.
According to the Pentagon, there is about $1.2 billion remaining in longer-term funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which is used to pay for weapons contracts that would not be delivered for a year or more.
The $5.6 billion is in a presidential drawdown authority (PDA), which allows the Pentagon to take weapons off the shelves and send them quickly to Ukraine.
"We will continue to do drawdown packages for the remainder of this administration, but $5.6 billion is a substantial amount of authority, so I would certainly anticipate ... there could be remaining authorities that would transition and be available for the next administration to use," the senior defense official said.
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press.
