Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s nuclear, chemical and biological defense forces, was killed in Moscow earlier today in a bomb attack by Ukrainian operatives. Just hours before he was killed, Ukraine’s domestic security service charged Kirillov in absentia for directing the use of banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces. (Washington Post)
Our Take
This assassination is notable for a number of reasons, not least of which is the brazenness of Ukraine targeting a top-level Russian military official in Moscow, marking the highest-profile assassination by Kyiv since the start of Russia’s all-out invasion in 2022. The context of Kirillov’s killing also highlights Russia’s use of chemical weapons in the conflict, something Kyiv says has occurred more than 4,800 times along the southern and eastern fronts in Ukraine since February 2022.
The assassination also speaks to both Ukraine’s and Russia’s shifting tactics in the war, with the conflict increasingly including a shadow war component fought outside the Ukrainian theater. In the Baltic Sea, for instance, Ukraine has damaged a handful of Russian warships this year and struck a Russian fuel terminal with a long-range missile. And last month, European officials accused Russia of cutting undersea telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea and plotting to place incendiary devices on cargo planes traveling to Europe.