An explosion kills the commander of the Russian nuclear defense forces in Moscow

An explosive device planted near an apartment building in Moscow killed the head of Russia’s nuclear and chemical forces early Tuesday morning, officials said.

The Russian Investigative Committee said that the bomb, which exploded by an explosive device placed in a motorcycle, killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his assistant.

Kirillov, who was appointed commander of Russia’s nuclear defense forces in April 2017, was subject to sanctions from several countries including the United Kingdom and Canada for his role in Ukraine.

Russia’s official TASS news agency, citing unnamed sources in the emergency services, reported that the bomb was detonated remotely and had a power equivalent to about 300 grams of TNT.

State television footage from the scene showed smashed windows and burned and charred bricks.

Russia says the explosion is a terrorist attack

“Investigators, forensic experts and operational services are working at the scene,” commission spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement. Investigation and inspection activities are currently underway to find out all the circumstances surrounding this crime.”

She also said that Moscow is treating the bombing as a terrorist attack.

Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, accused Kirillov on December 16 of using banned chemical weapons during Russia’s military operation in Ukraine that began in February 2022.

In May, the US 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 forces. Ukraine’s Security Service also said it had recorded more than 4,800 uses of chemical weapons on the battlefield since February 2022, particularly K-1 combat grenades.

Tuesday’s attack is not the first to target a Russian official.

On December 9, an explosive device was placed under a car in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk, reportedly targeting Sergei Yevsyukov, the head of Olenivka prison where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in a missile attack in July 2022. Another person was wounded in Explosion.

The Russian Federal Security Service said on Sunday that a suspect had been arrested and charged with detonating the explosive device.

During the roughly three-year operation, Russia made small but steady territorial gains in the roughly one-fifth of Ukraine it already controls.