The head of the Russian chemical weapons and mouthpiece was killed in Moscow

As the head of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological defense forces, Igor Kirillov, who died in an explosion in Moscow, was accused by the West of overseeing the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine.

In Russia, he was considered a tireless patriot who fights for the truth and exposes Western “crimes”.

Sources in the Security Service of Ukraine said that she was behind the explosion, describing it as a special operation against a “war criminal” and a legitimate target.

Kirillov and his aide were killed by explosives planted in an electric scooter, which Russian officials said was detonated as he was leaving the home he lived in on Ryazanskyi Prospect in southeast Moscow.

He became infamous for his strange briefings at the Russian Ministry of Defense which prompted the British Foreign Office to label him as “a significant mouthpiece of Kremlin disinformation”.

Kirillov was much more than just a mouthpiece, heading Russia’s Tymoshenko Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Academy before heading the Russian Army’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces in 2017.

The main tasks of the troops are to detect danger and protect units from contamination, as well as “inflicting damage to the enemy with the help of firearms and incendiary means,” according to the statement of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

This was reported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain that the forces he commanded had deployed “barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine,” highlighting, it said, the widespread use of riot agents and “numerous reports of the use of the toxic asphyxiant chloropicrin.”

On the eve of his murder, the SBU of Ukraine stated that he appears in absentia in a criminal case about the “mass use” of prohibited chemical weapons on the eastern and southern fronts of Ukraine.

It mentions “more than 4,800 cases of enemy use of chemical munitions” on the territory of Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.

It says toxic substances have been used in drone attacks as well as live grenades.

Kirillov earned his notoriety since the start of the war with a series of claims directed at both Ukraine and the West, none of which were based on fact.

Among his most outrageous claims was that The US was building biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine. It was used in an attempt to justify a full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbor in 2022.

In March 2022, he produced documents he claimed had been seized by Russia on the day of the February 24 invasion – which had been amplified by pro-Kremlin media but debunked by independent experts.

Kirillov’s well-known accusations against Ukraine continued this year as well.

Last month, he said that “one of the priority goals” of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Russia’s Kursk border region was the seizure of the Kursk nuclear power plant.

He presented a slide show, allegedly based on a Ukrainian report, which claims that in the event of an accident, only the territory of Russia will be exposed to radioactive contamination.

One of the themes that Kyrilov repeated was that Ukraine is trying to create a “dirty bomb.”

Two years ago, he claimed that “two organizations in Ukraine have specific instructions to create a so-called “dirty bomb”. This work is at the final stage.”

His statements were rejected by Western countries as “obviously false”.

But Kirillov’s claims prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to warn that if Russia suggests that Kyiv is preparing such weapons, it only means one thing — that Russia is already preparing them.

Kirillov returned to his dirty bomb claims last summer, this time claiming the discovery of a chemical weapons laboratory near Avdeivka, a town in eastern Ukraine that the Russians captured last February.

Kyiv, according to him, violates the international Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (CWC) with various substances with the help of Western countries, including the combat psychochemical substance BZ, as well as hydrocyanic acid and cyanide chloride.

The violent death of Kirillov came as a shock to the military and political establishment of Russia. A minute of silence was observed in the Russian parliament – Duma.

The deputy speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, Konstantin Kasachev, called his death an “irreparable loss”, while retired general and MP Andrei Gurulev said that Kirillov’s murder will not go unanswered.

Gurulev said that he was responsible for the acquisition of weapons that could only be seen on the battlefield and clearly understood the “criminal activities of the United States and its satellites.”

Pro-Kremlin loyalists see his death not only as a blow, but also as evidence that Ukraine has the ability to target high-ranking officials in Moscow.

Some commentators even pointed the finger at the British or Americans. According to Russian military correspondent Sasha Kots, this indicates that enemy agents are operating and spying on people “in our rear”.