Igor Kirillov, commander of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces, who died in an explosion in Moscow, was criticized by the West for overseeing the use of chemical weapons on the Ukrainian battlefield.
Ukraine’s SBU Security Service said a special operation targeting legitimate targets was behind the explosion.
According to Russian officials, Kirillov and his aide were killed by an explosive planted on an electric scooter, which detonated as he was leaving the building where he lived on Ryazansky Prospect in southeastern Moscow.
He was notorious for giving strange briefings to the Russian Ministry of Defense, which led the British Foreign Office to label him a “principal spokesperson for Kremlin disinformation.”
More than just a mouthpiece, Kirillov headed Russia’s Tymoshenko Academy of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection and, in 2017, headed the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiological, Chemical and Biological Protection Unit.
The British Foreign Office said:, external The military he commanded deployed “barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine,” he said, highlighting widespread use of riot control substances and “several reports of the use of the toxic asphyxiant chloropicrin.”
Shortly before his murder, the Ukrainian SBU announced that he had appeared in a criminal case on charges of “mass use” of banned chemical weapons on Ukraine’s eastern and southern fronts.
The report noted that “there have been more than 4,800 instances of enemy use of chemical weapons” on Ukrainian territory since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
It was revealed that toxic substances were used not only in drone attacks but also in combat grenades.
Kirillov gained notoriety from the start of the war for a series of claims made against Ukraine and the West, none of which were based on fact.
One of his most outrageous claims was that the United States was building a bioweapons laboratory in Ukraine. This was used in an attempt to justify a full-scale invasion of the smaller neighboring country in 2022.
He produced the March 2022 document, which he claimed was seized by Russia on the day of the Feb. 24 invasion. The document was amplified by pro-Kremlin media but discarded by independent experts.
Kirillov’s infamous claims about Ukraine continued into this year.
Last month he claimed that “one of the priority goals” of Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia’s Kursk border region was to seize the Kursk nuclear power plant.
He presented a slideshow purportedly based on a Ukrainian report claiming that if an accident occurred, only Russian territory would be exposed to radioactive contamination.
One of Kirillov’s recurring themes was that Ukraine was trying to develop a “dirty bomb.”
Two years ago he claimed that “two organizations in Ukraine have given specific instructions to build a so-called ‘dirty bomb’. This work is in its final stages.”
His claims were rejected as “manifestly false” by Western countries.
But Kirillov’s claims prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to warn that if Russia suggests Kiev is preparing that type of weapon, it would only mean one thing: Russia is already preparing it.
Kirillov returned to his dirty bomb claims from last summer, this time claiming that a chemical weapons laboratory had been discovered near the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdyvka, which Russia seized in February.
He claimed that Kiev, with the support of Western countries, is violating the International Convention on Chemical Weapons by using various substances such as prussic acid and cyanogen chloride as well as BZ, a psychochemical substance.
His death is seen as a blow to pro-Kremlin loyalists, but it is also evidence of Ukraine’s ability to target senior officials in Moscow.
Konstantin Kosachev, deputy chairman of the Russian Senate, said his death was an “irreparable loss.”
