The scene of the explosion that killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov in Moscow on Tuesday. Photo: EPA-EFE/YURI KOCHETKOV
Law enforcement officers in Moscow have detained an Uzbek citizen suspected of planting a bomb that killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his assistant outside Kirillov’s apartment block on Tuesday, Russia’s Investigative Committee announced on Wednesday.
In a statement, the Investigative Committee said that the 29-year-old suspect had confessed during questioning to being “recruited by the Ukrainian special services”, who allegedly offered him a reward of $100,000 and relocation to “a European country” for Kirillov’s assassination.
According to the Investigative Committee, the suspect travelled to Moscow, obtained an “improvised explosive device” and placed it on an e-scooter which he parked outside Kirillov’s apartment block, though it did not specify how or from whom he had received the device.
He then rented a car from a carsharing service and placed a camera inside it to live stream images of the entrance of Kirillov’s building to the “organisers of the terrorist attack in the city of Dnipro”, the Investigative Committee alleged.
“Once a video signal confirmed that the servicemen had exited the building, he remotely detonated the explosive device,” it concluded.
A video released by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) appeared to show the suspect, who Russian state news agency RIA Novosti named as Akhmad Kurbanov, sitting in a van and describing the assassination.
Russian Interior Ministry spokesperson Irina Volk said that the suspect had been detained in the Moscow region village of Chyornoye to the east of the capital, with a number of Russian news channels reporting that a second suspect had also been detained on Tuesday.
The Security Service of Ukraine claimed responsibility for the assassination of Kirillov and his assistant Ilya Polikarpov on Tuesday, with a source telling Ukrainian news outlet The Kyiv Independent that the general was a “war criminal and completely legitimate target, as he gave orders to use banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian soldiers”.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Russia would raise Kirillov’s killing at a UN Security Council meeting on Friday as it sought to ensure those responsible were “found and brought to justice, no matter who they are or where they may be”.
