Russia detains suspect over murder of General Igor Kirillov

Investigative Committee says 29-year-old Uzbek national suspected of carrying out Moscow attack on instructions of Ukraine.

Authorities in Russia have arrested a suspect over the killing of a top general and his aide in a bomb blast in Moscow.

The Investigative Committee said in a statement on Wednesday that a national of Uzbekistan had been arrested on suspicion of having committed the attack that killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his assistant Ilya Polikarpov on Tuesday morning.

It added the 29-year-old suspect said he had been “recruited by Ukrainian special forces”.

Kirillov, 54, had been the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops since 2017. He was killed outside an apartment building when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter went off.

The bomb was triggered remotely, according to Russian reports. Images from the scene showed shattered windows and scorched brickwork.

A source in the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, confirmed to Al Jazeera the agency was behind the attack. Ukraine has yet to officially comment on the incident.

Russia’s Federal Security Service published footage of the interrogation of the suspect, who, it said, faces “a sentence of up to life imprisonment”. The agency said he had been promised a reward of $100,000 and permission to move to a European Union country in exchange for killing Kirillov.

Acting on instructions from Ukraine, the suspect headed to Moscow, where he picked up a homemade explosive device, according to the agency. He then mounted it on the electric scooter which he left at the entrance to the residential building where Kirillov lived.

The suspect also rented a car to monitor the location and set up a camera that livestreamed footage “to the attack organisers, in the [Ukrainian] city of Dnipro. Once Kirillov was seen leaving the building, the suspect detonated the bomb.

Who was Kirillov?

Kirillov is the most senior Russian military officer to be assassinated inside Russia by Ukraine.

His murder is likely to prompt the Russian authorities to review security protocols for the army’s top brass.

Since Russia’s full-scale of invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kirillov held numerous briefings to accuse the Ukrainian military of using toxic agents and planning to launch attacks with radioactive substances – claims that Ukraine and its Western allies rejected as propaganda.

Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out a number of assassinations on its soil since the start of the war including missile developers, weapons designers and commanders of long-range units that have been attacking Ukrainian targets.