Igor Kirillov, head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection troops, who died in an explosion in Moscow, was accused by the West of overseeing the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Sources from Ukraine’s SBU security service claimed responsibility for the blast, calling it a special operation against a legitimate target.
According to Russian officials, Kirillov and his aide were killed by explosives planted in an electric scooter, which detonated as he left his building on Ryazansky Prospekt in south-eastern Moscow.
Kirillov gained notoriety for his sensational briefings at the Russian defense ministry, leading the UK Foreign Office to label him a “significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation.”
More than just a spokesman, Kirillov headed Russia’s Timoshenko Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Academy before leading the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops in 2017. The force’s responsibilities included identifying hazards, protecting units from contamination, and using “flame-incendiary means” to cause harm to the enemy, according to the Russian defense ministry.
The UK Foreign Office accused Kirillov’s unit of deploying “barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine,” pointing to the widespread use of riot control agents and multiple reports of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin.
On the eve of his death, Ukraine’s SBU revealed that Kirillov had been named in absentia in a criminal case for the “mass use” of prohibited chemical weapons on Ukraine’s eastern and southern fronts. The SBU cited over 4,800 instances of chemical weapons use by Russia since the beginning of the invasion in February 2022, including in drone attacks and combat grenades.
Kirillov had gained infamy early in the war for his baseless accusations against Ukraine and the West. One of his most outlandish claims was that the US had been building biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine, which he used to justify the 2022 invasion. He presented documents in March 2022 that he claimed were seized by Russia on the day of the invasion, but these were dismissed by independent experts and amplified by pro-Kremlin media.
Kirillov’s false allegations against Ukraine continued throughout the year.
Last month he claimed that “one of the priority aims” of Ukraine’s counter-offensive into Russia’s Kursk border region was to seize the Kursk nuclear power plant.
He presented a slideshow, purportedly based on a Ukrainian report, alleging that in the event of an accident only Russia territory would be exposed to radioactive contamination.
One of Kirillov’s repeated themes was that Ukraine was seeking to develop a “dirty bomb”.
Two years ago he alleged that “two organisations in Ukraine have specific instructions to create a so-called ‘dirty bomb’. This work is in its final stage”.
Kirillov’s claims were widely dismissed by Western nations as “transparently false.” However, they prompted Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to issue a stark warning, stating that if Russia was accusing Kyiv of preparing such weapons, it likely meant that Russia itself was already preparing them.
Last summer, Kirillov revisited his “dirty bomb” allegations, this time claiming the discovery of a chemical weapons laboratory near Avdiivka, a city in eastern Ukraine that Russia had captured in February. He accused Kyiv of violating the Chemical Weapons Convention by using various substances, including the psychochemical warfare agent BZ, as well as hydrocyanic acid and cyanogen chloride, with support from Western countries.
While Kirillov’s death is being seen by pro-Kremlin supporters as a significant blow, it also highlights Ukraine’s ability to target high-profile figures in Moscow. Konstantin Kosachev, the deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, described his death as an “irreparable loss.”