A citizen from Uzbekistan has been detained over the killing of Russian nuclear forces general Igor Kirillov, a Russian intelligence agency has said.Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) says the suspect has told them he was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services and was paid $100,000 (£79,000).
The FSB didn’t name the man, but said he was born in 1995.
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Investigators stand at the site where Lt Gen Igor Kirillov was killed. Pic: AP
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Russian general Igor Kirillov was killed when a bomb was detonated outside his home in Moscow. Pic: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
General Kirillov, 54, was killed on Tuesday by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter outside an apartment block in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service brought criminal charges against him.A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack, in which the senior general’s assistant also died.
Dashcam footage at the scene captured the moment the bomb detonated on the street as the two men walked out of the building about 4 miles (7km) southeast of the Kremlin.A statement issued on Wednesday by the Investigative Committee of Russia said that under interrogation, the suspect admitted Kyiv had supplied him with a homemade bomb after he arrived in the Russian capital.
He placed the device on an electric scooter, which he parked at the entrance to General Kirillov’s home, monitoring the scene via a surveillance camera installed in a hire car.Footage from the camera was watched by “the organisers of the terrorist attack in the city of Dnepr”, who detonated the device remotely after getting a “video signal about the soldiers leaving the entrance”.
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Russian news agency TASS said the bomb contained the equivalent of 300g of high explosive. Pic: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
As well as the money, the man was offered the chance to move to Europe in return for his part in the assassination, the committee said.Photographs posted on Russian Telegram channels showed two bodies lying in the blood-stained snow next to the wrecked entrance to a building.Russian news agency TASS said the bomb contained the equivalent of 300g of high explosive.
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Why was Igor Kirillov killed?
Several cars and the first four floors of the apartment building were damaged, the news agency added.Russia’s radioactive, chemical and biological defence soldiers, known as RKhBZ, are special forces who operate when there is a threat from radioactive, chemical and biological contamination.On Monday, a Ukrainian prosecutor opened a case against General Kirillov in absentia, accusing him of using banned chemical weapons in Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine said.
It was claimed that General Kirillov was “using dangerous chemicals mainly in the hottest areas of combat, where they [Russia] are trying to hide the use of chemical agents under dense artillery fire”.Russia denies those accusations.Read more:Alleged Chinese spy: ‘I did nothing wrong’Children living in temporary accommodation ‘for five years’Police ‘missed signs’ before riotsThe e-scooter, which Sky News’ Data and Forensics team has geolocated to the scene outside a residential building in Moscow, is from KugooKirin.
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