Head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection troops, Igor Kirillov has died in an explosion in Moscow.
The West accused Igor Kirillov, who was killed in a Moscow explosion, of supervising the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine while he was in charge of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection forces.
He was seen as an unwavering patriot in Russia who exposed Western “crimes” and fought for the truth.
The detonation was portrayed as a special operation against a “war criminal” and a legal target by sources from Ukraine’s SBU security service, which claimed responsibility for the incident.
According to Russian officials, Kirillov and an aide were killed by explosives concealed in an electric scooter that exploded as he was leaving his residence on Ryazansky Prospekt in south-eastern.
He had become notorious for outlandish briefings at the Russian defence ministry which prompted the UK Foreign Office to label him as a “significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation”.
Kirillov was much more than just a spokesperson, he was heading Russia’s Timoshenko Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Academy and later leading the Russian army’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops in 2017.
According to the Russian defence ministry, the force’s primary responsibilities include spotting dangers and shielding units from contamination, as well as “causing loss to the enemy by using flame-incendiary means.” It is believed to be a reference to Russia’s flame-thrower system, which uses thermobaric warheads to destroy targets.
The force Kirillov headed was accused by the UK Foreign Office of using “barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine,” citing the extensive use of riot control chemicals and “multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin.”
He had been named in absentia in a criminal prosecution for the “mass use” of banned chemical weapons on Ukraine’s eastern and southern fronts, the SBU of Ukraine announced on the eve of his murder. Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, it reported “more than 4,800 cases of the enemy using chemical munitions” on Ukrainian soil.
It claimed that poisonous materials have been utilised in both combat grenades and drone attacks. Since the beginning of the conflict, Kirillov has gained prominence for a number of unfounded accusations against the West and Ukraine.
His assertion that the United States had been constructing biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine was one of his more ludicrous ones.