Moscow: A senior Russian military official was killed on Tuesday when an explosive device hidden in a scooter went off outside a building in Moscow, Russian investigators said.
The commander of Russian armed forces’ chemical, biological and radiation defence troops, Igor Kirillov, was killed along with his deputy when the blast went off as the two men left a building in southeastern Moscow early morning.
What do investigators know?
According to Russian state-run media outlet TASS, the Russian Investigative Committee has launched a probe into the deadly blast.
“The Russian Investigative Committee’s department in Moscow has opened a criminal probe into an incident on Moscow’s Ryazansky Avenue where two men were killed,” the investigators said in a statement.
Investigators and criminalists are currently working at the scene, the communique read.
Emergency officials told TASS that the blast might have been caused by an explosive device.
Earlier, emergency services told TASS that an explosion shook the first floor of a residential building that was not gasified on Ryazansky Avenue in southeastern Moscow. The blast damaged the facade glazing of the first four floors of the building.
Who was Igor Kirillov
Igor Kirillov was the head of the country’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defence Forces (NBC).
He attended the Kostroma Higher Military Command School of Chemical Defence in Russia.
The general served in different roles in Russia’s military, which were associated with hazardous materials, including the Directorate of the Chief of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops.
The blast comes as what Moscow calls its special military operation in Ukraine nears its third anniversary.
According to the BBC, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) had charged Kirillov with using chemical weapons in Ukraine and the general was sanctioned in October by Britain over similar charges.
