Russia arrests suspect for Moscow bombing that killed chemical weapons chief

Russia has detained a suspect in the assassination of General Igor Kirillov, a spokesperson for its main prosecutor’s office said Wednesday. 

The suspect is a 29-year-old Uzbek national whose name has not been released. He was detained in a village outside Moscow and, according to Russian authorities, confessed that he had been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence to kill Kirillov.

“On their instructions, he arrived in Moscow and was given a homemade explosive device. He placed it on an electric scooter, which he parked at the entrance to the apartment building where Igor Kirillov lived,” the spokesperson for the Russian Investigative Committee said.

According to the Russian authorities, the suspect had been offered a cash reward of $100,000 and a trip to a European country.

Kirillov was in charge of the Russian military’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons protection forces.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) claimed responsibility for Kirillov’s assassination, a Ukrainian law enforcement official told POLITICO Tuesday. A few hours before the attack, the SBU charged Kirillov in absentia for ordering the massive use of banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian army on the eastern and southern fronts of the battlefield.

An aide to Kirillov was also killed in the blast.