Russian general killed in Ukrainian special operation, Kyiv source says

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) killed Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov in a special operation in Moscow on Tuesday, a source in the agency told Reuters.

Reuters could not independently verify the claim. The source said Kyiv regarded Kirillov as a war criminal and an "absolutely legitimate target," accusing him of ordering the use of prohibited chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces in the war.

A bomb hidden in an electric scooter killed a senior Russian general in charge of nuclear protection forces in Moscow on Tuesday, Russia's investigative committee said.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who is chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside an apartment building on Ryazansky Prospekt, which starts road some 7 km (4 miles) southeast of the Kremlin.

"Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical, and biological protection forces of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, and his assistant were killed," the investigative committee said.

Photographs posted on Russian Telegram channels showed a shattered entrance to a building littered with rubble and two bodies lying in the blood-stained snow.

Investigating the murder

A criminal case has been opened.

Russia's radioactive, chemical, and biological defense troops, known as RKhBZ, are special forces that operate under conditions of radioactive, chemical, and biological contamination.

On Monday, Ukrainian prosecutors charged Kirillov in absentia with the alleged use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine said, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Russia denies those accusations.

Britain in October sanctioned Kirillov and the nuclear protection forces for using riot control agents, and multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin on the battlefield.