‘Many more Russian war criminals on our list’: Ukraine vows more attacks

Igor Kirillov, the 54-year-old general who led Russia’s nuclear protection forces, was assassinated just one day after Ukrainian intelligence accused him of ordering the use of banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian servicemen.

Explosives hidden in a scooter parked outside a Moscow apartment building blew up Kirillov and his assistant on Tuesday.

Before his death, Kirillov had frequented Russian talk shows to claim without providing any evidence that Kyiv “plans to create a dirty bomb” and the United States runs “biological warfare labs” in Ukraine to “breed” mosquitoes that transmit anthrax and cholera.

The blast took place in a densely populated and traffic-clogged district in southeastern Moscow.

It was the fourth hit on high-profile Russian military figures in less than two months. Ukraine does not always claim responsibility for such attacks but its officials often laud them on social media.

In this case, a Ukrainian official, talking to Al Jazeera and several other media outlets on condition of anonymity, claimed responsibility for the bombing that killed Kirillov and his aide.Kyiv has operated a decade-old campaign to whittle down Russian military figures and officials, as well as some of their vocal backers, along with Ukrainian separatists and turncoats in Moscow-occupied areas.

The explosion shattered doors and windows of the apartment building and shook off snow from cars parked close by. It was like a “breath of death”, according to Kirillov’s ex-neighbour.

Ulyana, who used to walk her dog near the general’s house, said the attack made her “really think about what your neighbours do for a living”.

“You feel the war knocking on your door. You feel the breath of death, even if it’s the death of someone who deserved it,” the 34-year-old, who took part in anti-Kremlin rallies before leaving Russia last year, told Al Jazeera.

She inadvertently repeated the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) wording.

“He was a legitimate target and deserved death,” an SBU source told Al Jazeera. “And there are many more Russian war criminals on our list.”

Ukraine’s elimination campaign “doesn’t contradict international law, it’s about strikes on enemy territory, aimed at enemy combatants”, Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevich told Al Jazeera.

Its most recent victims include missile and drone designer Mikhail Shatsky, who was gunned down on December 12 in a Moscow park.

On December 9, a car bomb killed separatist “prison official” Sergey Evsyukov in the rebel-controlled city of Donetsk. In July 2022, an explosion in the Olenivka penitentiary he managed killed 53 Ukrainian war prisoners and wounded more than 100.