Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, a Russian general in charge of the country's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Forces, was killed Tuesday by what officials described as a bomb hidden in a scooter outside a Moscow apartment building.
Kirillov had been accused by Kyiv and its Western allies of using chemical weapons in Ukraine.
The general's assistant also was reported killed in the blast, according to Russia's Investigative Committee, a federal law enforcement agency. Investigators and forensic workers were still collecting evidence at the scene, but Russia state media said the bomb, remotely operated, was detonated as Kirillov was leaving the apartment block.
There was no public claim of responsibility for the blast, which damaged the first four floors of the residential building on Ryazansky Prospekt in Moscow. But media reports in Ukraine, citing the country's domestic security service, known as SBU, suggested Kirillov's killing was a special operation carried out by Kyiv. If that's confirmed, it would be a rare targeted assassination of a high-profile military commander inside Russia.
