Russian General Igor Kirillov Killed in Moscow

Let’s get more on that story that broke in Russia a couple of hours ago. The head of the country’s chemical, biological, and nuclear protection forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, has been killed in an explosion in Moscow. The country’s investigative committee says the general was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter parked outside an apartment block earlier on Tue

Russia is, of course, embroiled in a war in Ukraine and in southern Russia after Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor almost three years ago. We’re joined now by Chris Sampson, the editor-in-chief of NatSecMedia, which is a collective of international journalists in the Ukraine

Almost three years ago, we’re joined now by Chris Sampson, the editor-in-chief of NatSecMedia, which is a collective of international journalists in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Welcome back to Newsday. What do you make of this killing of this senior general in Moscow

Chris Sampson here to let you know that this is now yet another, uh, what I would call accountability. If the Ukrainian forces are responsible, it would fall in a pattern of: if we can’t haul you into court, we’ll get you on the battlefield. If you may have heard just a few days ago, the man who was in charge of the Olenivka Detention Center, where they were holding Ukrainians and killed them, was also killed in an IED attack on his Toyota Land Cruiser.

Your country had actually just charged sanctions against Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was the head of this as well as the actual defense unit plus some of the other adjoining scientific centers. So it was known that this unit had been involved in chemical weapons use in Ukraine. The SSU had just charged him yesterday, according to Ukrainian papers this morning. So that wasn’t announced, by the way, because I tracked these, and so it was announced today when the news

Right, you talk about accountability. I mean, if they only issued these papers yesterday, there hadn’t been much of an attempt to get them into court, had there? But just what do you make of the fact that they have—that if this is indeed Ukraine, which is the assumption of many people—there’s certainly no admission from Kyiv yet, and Moscow isn’t pointing any fingers yet. But if this is the work of Kyiv, what do you make of the fact that they have been able to kill such a senior general in Moscow, apparently outside his own home?

Well, that’s what I’m saying. This is not a new pattern at this point. The reason why I say, if they can’t get you into court—meaning that the prevailing view here, I’ve been here for three years, is that there is no real international community that’s going to come and do things. There’s an appeal to such a community, but ultimately nothing benefits Ukraine, so other means are necessary to remove the commanders of these units.

So, there have been, I mean, a few dozen in the last two years of commanders who were taken out. Now, as far as when and where it makes interesting news sometimes for those of us who watch is when it’s a targeted assassination with, you know, a car bombing, right? And often, they were in occupied territory as well. So, that’s more common. But to see it further in Russia should not be surprising when it comes to Ukrainian forces because they would certainly know the lay of the land.

So there are Ukrainian agents in Russia planning and carrying out this kind of killing.

CS: It would seem in evidence.

Killing this particular general, though, surely won’t make any difference at all to what happens on the battlefield in Ukraine or in Kursk in southern Russia, Because he’ll just be replaced by somebody else.

True, he’ll be replaced. But also, again, when these events happen—for instance, I’ll use Olenivka, as that’s what I’m closest to because I’ve covered it since the day it went down—one of the first things that happens is a strong search for the command structure, who gives orders to these illegal activities, whether it be torture of captives Ukrainians, whether they be soldiers or use of chemical weapons, the first thing you will see is a strong drive, and I want to say sort of like the civilian side of the effort, you know, to hold accountability. And they will name names eventually when they can find out what the command structures are and they’re very serious about holding every person who gave command to war crimes accountable.

Just reading some of the information that Ukraine’s Security Service has published, saying that chemical weapons have been used in Ukraine more than 4,800 times since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion

Also saying that 2,000 Ukrainian service members have been hospitalized from chemical poisoning over the course of the war as well—three people have died.

I’m aware personally of some soldiers who have encountered that including Western soldiers

Right. When we have seen Ukraine push back against Moscow or its forces in a dramatic way recently, we have seen Moscow hit Ukraine hard whether it be, as we saw a couple of months ago, the largest such overnight attack by air on Ukraine since the war began so Ukraine must be bracing itself for some kind of blowback from this killing.

I’m actually going to push back on that just a little bit in the sense that I understand why that’s a perception from the outside, but I’ve been tracking a lot of the missile salvos since October 10, 2022, when we began what was the winter campaign, what was sometimes called the strategic air campaign. What was sometimes called the Surovikin campaign, and it’s really hard to tie consistent Russian aggression to reactions from Ukrainians because you’re going to have them anyway what they tend to do is—like, it’s often the large salvos. So let’s qualify that: 70 to 100 drones per night softens the air defense, and then within a week or so a supplemental 25 to 100 missile salvo. It’s hard to tie that to specific events because it takes a lot to coordinate those attacks they already in progress. So I don’t think it’s wise—and I’ve even asked the Ukrainian Air Force, Yuriy Ignat and others here—”Do you think there’s a correlation between this and this, and their official position has often been that all these mechanisms are already in play so tying them  to all these mechanisms that are already in play and so tying them to retaliatory action is more a political hat trick at the Kremlin level.

Thank you, Chris Sampson, Editor in Chief of NatSecMedia in Kyiv.

One of the most recent updates is about the UK sanctions wich have been placed on Lt Gen Kirillov back in October. The UK said at the time that Russia had openly admitted using chemical weapons on the battlefield. The Kremlin said those accusations were baseless.