Moscow: Russia said on Wednesday it had detained an Uzbek man who had confessed to planting and detonating a bomb which killed a top general, Igor Kirillov, in Moscow on the instructions of Ukraine’s SBU security service.
Kirillov, who was chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside his apartment building on Tuesday along with his assistant when a bomb attached to an electric scooter went off. Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service took responsibility for the killing after Ukraine accused Kirillov of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops – something Moscow denies.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement on Wednesday that the unnamed suspect had told them he had come to Moscow to carry out an assignment for Ukraine’s intelligence services. In a video published by the Baza news outlet, which is known to have sources in Russian law-enforcement circles, the suspect is seen sitting in a van describing his actions. It was not clear under what conditions he was speaking and Reuters could not immediately verify the video’s authenticity.
Dressed in a winter coat, the suspect is shown saying he had come to Moscow, bought an electric scooter, and received an improvised explosive device. He describes placing the device on the electric scooter and parking it outside the apartment block where Kirillov lived. Investigators cited him as saying he set up a surveillance camera in a hire car which, they said, was watched in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro by people who organised the killing. The suspect, who is thought to be 29, 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.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, said Moscow would raise the assassination at the United Nations Security Council on Dec 20.