Russia says suspect detained in killing of senior general in Moscow
Global News
The suspect was described as an Uzbek citizen recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
Russia’s security service said Wednesday that it has detained a suspect in the killing of a senior general in Moscow.
The suspect was described as an Uzbek citizen recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov was killed Tuesday by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service leveled criminal charges against him. His assistant also died in the attack. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, didn’t name the suspect, but said he was born in 1995. According to a statement by the FSB, the suspect said himself that he was recruited by Ukrainian special services. AP can’t confirm the conditions under which the suspect spoke to the security services.
The FSB said the suspect had been promised a reward of $100,000 and permission to move to a European Union country in exchange for killing Kirillov.
The agency stated that acting on instructions from Ukraine, the suspect travelled to Moscow, where he picked up a homemade explosive device. He placed the device on an electric scooter and parked it at the entrance to the residential building where Kirillov lived.
The suspect then rented a car to monitor the location and set up a camera that livestreamed the scene to his handlers in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Once Kirillov was seen leaving the building, the suspect detonated the bomb. The suspect faces a sentence of up to life imprisonment, the FSB said.
The suspect was detained in a village in the Moscow region, according to Ministry of Internal Affairs official Irina Volk, who was quoted by Russian state news agency TASS.
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