Ukraine Takes Credit for Moscow Scooter Bombing Targeting Top Russian General

The Ukrainian state outlet Ukrinform, citing government sources, reported on Tuesday that the State Security Service (SBU) of Ukraine was responsible for the assassination of Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov in Moscow that morning.

Kirillov and an aide, identified in Russian media as Ilya Polikarpov, died on Tuesday morning in an explosion in Moscow, reportedly while waiting for their commute to work, when a bomb went off near them. Reports indicate that 300 grams of TNT was hidden in an electric scooter placed near a site where the apparent targets regularly convened to go to work.

Ukrainian state media indicated that the apartment building near where the explosion occurred was not connected to a gas line and that the explosion was exclusively the product of the detonation of a weapon hidden in an electric scooter. It also published videos of the site in the aftermath.

Kirillov was the head of the Russian Armed Forces unit in charge of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons defense and a high-ranking soldier; his targeting indicates that Ukraine is able to conduct counterinvasion operations against high-level officials in the Russian capital successfully, even as it struggles to contain Russian troop advances within its own territory. Both Ukraine and the United States have accused Russia of engaging in chemical weapons attacks in Ukraine following the launch of the “special operation” to oust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by Russia in 2022. Russia has denied the allegations.

Ukrinform confirmed that the SBU killed Kirillov with the agency and published a statement from an anonymous SBU source that described him as a “completely legitimate target” of attack. It noted that Kirillov was facing criminal charges in Ukraine for his alleged role in the ongoing Russian invasion of the country. Kyiv claimed that Kirillov was a pivotal force behind alleged chemical attacks against Ukrainian civilians.

“Kirillov was a war criminal and a completely legitimate target, since he gave orders to use banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military. Such an inglorious end awaits all who kill Ukrainians,” the SBU source told the Ukrainian state media outlet. “Retribution for war crimes is inevitable.”

The apparent assassination occurred the day after the SBU formally filed criminal charges against Kirillov.

“Since the start of the full-scale war, Ukrainian authorities have documented over 4,800 cases of chemical munitions being used against Ukrainian forces,” Ukrinform claimed. “These incidents include the use of K-1 combat grenades containing toxic irritants such as CS and CN.”

The Russian government has not refuted Ukraine’s claims to responsibility in the attack. On the contrary, Russian officials accused Ukraine of “terrorism” and threatened greater consequences for Kyiv for targeting Kirillov.

“The Kiev regime’s criminal nature is evident. This is a terrorist state led by an illegitimate Nazi president. All those responsible must be duly punished,” the speaker of the Russian legislature, the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on Monday, according to the Russian news agency Tass. Volodin celebrated Kirillov as a “patriot of Russia” and credited him with helping “boost the efficiency of Russia’s radiation, chemical, and biological protection troops.”

Russian state news outlets are reporting the SBU’s claims without refuting them, emphasizing that, while he was alive, Kirillov accused Ukraine of developing biological weapons to be deployed against Russian civilians. A senior Russian Foreign Ministry official, ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik, claimed the assassination was part of a much larger list of attempting killings of Russian officials by Ukrainian forces.

“There have been about a dozen cases of unofficial executions, where certain sentences were handed down, and attempts were made to implement them through terrorist acts,” Miroshnik said, according to Tass. “Including on the territory of the Kherson Region, as well as in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.”

Miroshnik said that he believed that Kirillov was targeted by a “contract killing,” implying that Ukrainian operatives did not actually execute the attack, but the Tass report did not indicate that he provided any evidence of this or that any exists.

Also entering the conversation on Tuesday was Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and one of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin’s closest confidantes. Medvedev regularly threatens nuclear attacks on Western states and often serves as a mouthpiece for the less diplomatic messages Moscow hopes to send to the world.

“This terrorist attack demonstrates the agony of the Banderite regime, which is struggling to justify its shaky existence in the eyes of its Western patrons and prolong the deadly hostilities while delivering cowardly attacks on civilians in cities and towns,” Medvedev proclaimed. “Banderites” are supporters of Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera, who collaborated against Russia with Nazi Germany during World War II.

“Attempts to intimidate our nation, stop the Russian offensive or sow fear are doomed,” Medvedev asserted. “Certain punishment awaits Banderite Nazis, including the top military and political leaders of a crumbling country.”

The Russian government has claimed for years that the “special operation” to oust Zelensky is necessary because his regime is an “illegitimate” “Nazi” regime. Zelensky, the first Jewish president of Ukraine, was elected in a free and fair election in 2019 but his presidential term expires this year. The Ukrainian constitution bans elections during a state of war.

Zelensky has not commented on the Moscow bombing at press time.

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