Russian general was killed by bomb in Moscow. Ukraine official says secret service was behind it
Moscow (AP/PTI): A senior Russian general was killed Tuesday by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine's security agency levelled criminal charges against him.
A Ukrainian official said the country's security service carried out the attack.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military's nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed as he left for his office.
Kirillov's assistant also died in the bombing, which was triggered remotely, according to Russian news reports. Images from the scene showed shattered windows and scorched and blackened brickwork.
Kirillov was under sanctions from several countries, including the UK and Canada, for his actions in Moscow's war in Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine's Security Service, or SBU, opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.
An official with the SBU said the agency was behind the attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release the information, described Kirillov as a “war criminal and an entirely legitimate target.”
The SBU has said it recorded more than 4,800 occasions when Russia used chemical weapons on the battlefield since its full-scale invasion in February 2022. In May, the US State Department said in a statement that it had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a poison gas first deployed in World War I, against Ukrainian troops.
Russia has denied using any chemical weapons in Ukraine and, in turn, has accused Kyiv of using toxic agents in combat.
Kirillov, who took his current job in 2017, was one of the most high-profile figures to level those accusations. He held numerous briefings to accuse the Ukrainian military of using toxic agents and planning to launch attacks with radioactive substances — claims that Ukraine and its Western allies rejected as propaganda.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, several prominent figures have been killed in targeted attacks.
Darya Dugina, a commentator on Russian TV channels and the daughter of Kremlin-linked nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, died in a 2022 car bombing that investigators suspected was aimed at her father.
Vladlen Tatarsky, a popular military blogger, died in April 2023, when a statuette given to him at a party in St. Petersburg exploded. A Russian woman, who said that she presented the figurine on orders of a contact in Ukraine, was convicted in the case and handed a 27-year sentence.
In December 2023, Illia Kiva, a former pro-Moscow Ukrainian lawmaker who fled to Russia, was shot and killed near Moscow. The Ukrainian military intelligence lauded the killing, warning that other “traitors of Ukraine” would share the same fate.
On Dec. 9, an explosive device was placed under a car in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk, reportedly targeting Sergei Yevsyukov, the former head of the Olenivka Prison where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war died in a missile strike in July 2022. One other was injured in the blast. Russian authorities said they detained a suspect in the attack.
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Snowfall blocks two key roads providing alternative connectivity to Kashmir
Rajouri/Jammu (PTI): Traffic on the Mughal and Sinthan Top roads, which provide alternate connectivity to Kashmir, was temporarily suspended on Sunday due to light to moderate snowfall in the high-altitude areas of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.
However, traffic on the 270-kilometre Jammu-Srinagar national highway -- the only all weather road linking Kashmir with the rest of the country -- was plying as usual despite intermittent rains that ended the over one-and-a-half months long dry spell, they said.
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The Mughal road, which connects the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri with south Kashmir's Shopian, was closed for traffic as a precautionary measure after more than three inches of snow was recorded at Peer Ki Gali on Sunday afternoon.
A group of three tea vendors are left stranded on the road and efforts are on to evacuate them to safety, officials said.
After they were trapped in the snow, the vendors made passionate appeals through video messages urging the authorities to rescue them. The Border Roads Organisation has taken up snow clearance work and is trying to reach the stranded persons, officials said.
The Sinthan Top road, which connects Kishtwar and Doda districts in Jammu with south Kashmir's Anantnag, was also closed after moderate snowfall in the higher reaches.
Both the mountainous roads usually remain closed for several months due to heavy snowfall during winter.
