An Uzbek citizen accused of acting on behalf of Ukraine has been charged in a Russian court with this week’s assassination of a senior Russian general and his assistant in an electric scooter bombing claimed by Ukraine’s security services, Russian state media said on Thursday (December 19, 2024).
Akhmadzhon Kurbonov was ordered detained until at least February 17 in Tuesday’s bombing that killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of Russia’s Radiation, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, the Tass state news agency reported.
Kurbonov was charged with the killings, carrying out a terrorist act and illegally manufacturing explosives, the news agency said.
Kirillov was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service levelled criminal charges against him. His assistant, Ilya Polikarpov, also was killed.
Kurbonov, previously referred to by news agencies as Akhmad Kurbanov, was detained by Russian security services on Wednesday. Shortly after he was detained, Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, which did not identify him, said he was born in 1995 and was recruited by Ukraine’s security service. The Associated Press could not confirm the conditions under which the suspect spoke to the FSB.
The suspect said he had been promised $100,000 and resettlement in a European Union country in exchange for killing Kirillov, according to the FSB.
The agency said that acting on instructions from Ukraine, the suspect picked up a homemade bomb in Moscow, placed it on an e-scooter and parked it at the entrance to Kirillov’s apartment building.
He rented a car to monitor the location and set up a camera that livestreamed the scene to his handlers in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the FSB said, detonating the bomb when Kirillov left the building.
Kirillov, 54, was the head of Russia’s Radiation, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces. The special troops are tasked with protecting the military from use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and ensuring operations in a contaminated environment.
He was under sanctions from several countries, including the UK and Canada, for his actions in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.
Russia denied using any chemical weapons in Ukraine and has accused Kyiv of using toxic agents in combat.
An SBU official told AP on Tuesday that the agency was behind the attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, described Kirillov as a “war criminal and an entirely legitimate target.”
Published – December 20, 2024 01:07 am IST
