The murder of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov was a terrorist attack, the Russian president has said
The murder of Russian Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov was an act of terrorism, President Vladimir Putin has insisted, adding that Kiev has repeatedly commissioned such attacks on Russian soil without receiving any condemnation in the West.
Putin made the remarks on Thursday during his annual end-of-year press conference, describing the assassination of the general, who headed the country’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces, as a terrorist attack perpetrated through “publicly dangerous” means.
“The regime in Kiev has repeatedly committed such crimes – terrorist attacks against many citizens of Russia. And even now, in the Kursk region, they execute civilians… they have been killing journalists. We have never heard condemnation of such terrorist attacks” in the West, Putin stated.
Kirillov was killed alongside his aide in an explosion outside his Moscow residence early on Tuesday. Russian investigators said an improvised explosive device packed with up to 1kg of TNT was concealed inside an electric scooter parked right outside the building, with the site monitored through a camera planted inside a carsharing vehicle parked across the road.
On Wednesday, Russia’s Investigative Committee announced it has detained a 29-year-old national of Uzbekistan, suspected of carrying out the attack. The suspect has since admitted being recruited by Ukrainian intelligence, and that they promised to pay him a $100,000 reward and provide safe passage to the EU in exchange for eliminating the general.
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