WATCH Suspected assassin of top Russian general arrested in FSB raid
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has released footage of the arrest of a man suspected of carrying out Tuesday’s high-profile assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces.
General Kirillov and his aide, Maj. Ilya Polikarpov, were killed by an improvised explosive device planted outside a residential building in Moscow early on Tuesday morning. According to Russian authorities, the bomb was attached to an electric scooter parked near the building’s entrance and was detonated remotely.
On Wednesday, Russia’s Investigative Committee reported that the suspect, a 29-year-old man from Uzbekistan, was detained in Moscow Region. The FSB carried out the arrest with support from the Russian National Guard’s rapid response unit, the service said.
In footage of the raid released by the FSB, multiple armed and armored law enforcement officers can be seen bursting into the apartment where the suspect was staying. Later, the suspect, now wearing a black puffer jacket, can be seen kneeling in the snow outside with his hands behind his back.
The suspect admitted that he was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services and traveled to Moscow to carry out the attack, according to the Investigative Committee’s report. He had allegedly been promised a $100,000 reward and an exit route to a European country once he completed his part in the assassination of the Russian general.
Since 2017, Kirillov had headed the branch of the Russian army tasked with protecting troops and civilians from chemical and biological weapons, as well as radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons or dirty bombs.
Russian President Vladimir Putin branded the assassination an act of terrorism while speaking at his annual end-of-year press conference on Thursday.
“The regime in Kiev has repeatedly committed such crimes – terrorist attacks against many citizens of Russia. And even now, in Kursk Region, they execute civilians... they have been killing journalists. We have never heard condemnation of such terrorist attacks” from the West, Putin stated.
Russian investigators have accused the Ukrainian government of orchestrating the killings of journalist Darya Dugina, Russian military blogger Maksim Fomin (best known by the pen name Vladlen Tatarsky), and other civilians in Russia.
