An Uzbek man detained by Russia’s FSB domestic intelligence agency has admitted being recruited by Ukraine to assassinate Igor Kirillov, the Russian general killed in a Moscow bomb blast, the FSB said on Wednesday.
The suspect had admitted being recruited by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency and provided with explosives by the SBU, the FSB said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised the progress made by the investigators. “Not a lot of time has passed, but a lot is already known,” he said, according to a report by state news agency TASS.
Peskov attributed the killing to Ukraine. “We know who commissioned this terrorist attack. We are fighting this Nazi regime and will continue the struggle,” he said, using terms frequently used by Russian politicians to describe the Ukrainian government.
The attack on Kirillov showed that Russia was justified in its “special military operation” in Ukraine, he said. There was no indication of involvement by other countries, Peskov said.
Asked whether Russian military leaders needed better protection, he responded: “A terrorist attack is a terrorist attack.”
Kirillov, a lieutenant general and head of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops (NBC), was responsible for protection against threats from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
He was killed by an explosive device as he was leaving his Moscow apartment block on Tuesday morning. His assistant also died in the blast.
Russian investigators termed the killing a terrorist attack and immediately attributed it to Ukrainian intelligence.
In Kiev, the SBU revealed through unofficial channels that it was in fact behind the assassination. Kirillov had been formally charged with war crimes in Ukraine the day before he died.
According to the FSB, the suspect had installed a small wirelessly connected camera in his car, which had been parked outside Kirillov’s building. This had allowed the SBU to monitor Kirillov’s movements, the FSB said.
SBU officers had then detonated the explosive device placed in an electric scooter. They had promised the suspect $100,000 and that they would get him out of Russia to a European Union country, the FSB said.
While a number of assassinations of Russian officials have been attributed to agents of the Ukrainian government, assassinating a general in Moscow and acknowledging the act is unusual.
SBU says North Korean troops suffering heavy losses in Kursk
The SBU said on Wednesday that North Korean troops fighting alongside the Russian military to reclaim the Ukrainian-occupied area of Kursk are suffering heavy losses.
Citing wiretapped phone conversations, it said more than 200 injured North Koreans have been admitted to a hospital near Moscow within a few days.
There are complaints that the foreign troops are receiving preferential treatment in hospital, the SBU added.
The SBU’s information could not be independently verified.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Matthew Miller, a spokesman from the US State Department, said: “We have … seen North Korean soldiers deploy to the front lines in Kursk, and we have seen them sustain casualties, both killed in action and wounded.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken of high losses among North Korean soldiers in recent days and has accused Russia of cremating dead soldiers to conceal the death toll.
Zelensky has also criticized Kiev’s allies for not responding to the deployment of North Korean troops in the war.
Miller warned that if North Korean soldiers crossed the border into Ukraine, this would be seen as “yet another escalation” by Russia.
As part of its military cooperation with Moscow, North Korea is said not only to have supplied Russia with artillery, ammunition and missiles, but also to have sent more than 10,000 soldiers to the war zone.
