On Wednesday, December 18, the Russian Investigative Committee announced that the suspect behind the bombing attack outside a building in Moscow the day before has been detained. The suspect from Uzbekistan admitted to carrying out the attack on the instructions of the Ukrainian Security Service against Igor Kirillov, the commander of Russia’s radiological, chemical, and biological protection forces, and his assistant.
According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the unnamed suspect told them that he had gone to Moscow to carry out this mission for the Ukrainian intelligence agency.
In a confession video released by Baza News, the suspect can be seen sitting in a van describing the actions he took.
The background of the suspect speaking in the video is currently unclear, and Reuters was unable to immediately verify the authenticity of the video.
In the video, the suspect, wearing winter clothes, said he came to Moscow on the instructions of the Ukrainian intelligence agency, bought an electric scooter, and later received a simple device to detonate months later.
He also described how he placed the device on the electric scooter, which had been parked in front of Kirillov’s apartment building in advance.
Investigators cited the suspect as saying that he installed a surveillance camera on a rented car nearby, and the organizers of the assassination operation used the camera to observe the scene. He also claimed that the organizers’ base was in the city of Dnipro in Ukraine.
In the video, the suspect, born in 1995, said that when Kirillov and his assistant left the apartment building, he remotely detonated the explosive device.
He also claimed that Ukraine paid him $100,000 and provided him with residency in a European country as compensation for his actions.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) stated that they are confirming the involvement of other individuals in this bombing attack.
According to the Russian newspaper “Kommersant,” another suspect has also been detained. Reuters has not been able to independently verify this information.
On Tuesday, December 17, a bomb placed on an electric scooter was remotely detonated outside an apartment building on Ryazansky Prospekt in Moscow, killing Kirillov and his assistant on the spot.
The day before, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) accused Kirillov of being responsible for Russia’s military use of internationally banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces.
Moscow has denied these accusations.
(This article referenced reports from Reuters)