Kirillov’s death came just a day after the Ukrainian security service, SBU, opened criminal probe against him.

Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the 54-year-old chief of the Russian military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his home. He was leaving for his office at the time.

Reportedly, Kirillov’s assistant was also killed in the attack.

The senior general was under sanctions from several countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, for his actions in Russia’s war in Ukraine. And the SBU on Monday opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of ordering the use of banned chemical weapons.

An official with the SBU, cited by AP on anonymity conditions, said that the agency was behind the attack and described Kirillov as a “war criminal and an entirely legitimate target”.

The Ukrainian secret service agency recorded over 4,800 occasions when Russia used chemical weapons in the war since the February 2022 invasion.

In May this year, the US State Department also said that it recorded the use of chloropicrin, a poison gas first used in World War I, against Ukrainian forces.

However, Russia dismissed these statements and said it did not use any chemical weapons in Ukraine. It rather accused Kyiv of deploying toxic agents against Russian troops in combat.

Kirillov, who took charge as the Russian chemical weapons chief in 2017, was one of the most high-profile personalities to level these allegations against Ukraine.

He held several briefings to accuse Ukraine’s military of using toxic elements and planning to launch radioactive substances attacks against Russia. These claims have been rejected as ‘propaganda’ by both Ukraine and its Western allies.

The bomb used to kill Kirillov was triggered remotely, AP reported citing Russian news reports.

Russia’s top investigating agency, meanwhile, said that it is probing the senior general’s death as a case of terrorism.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, said the attack was Kyiv’s attempt to distract the citizens from its military failures. He vowed that Ukraine’s “senior military-political leadership will face inevitable retribution”.

In the past year, Russia and Ukraine have been constantly locking horns over the war, with attacks growing deeper into the Donetsk region. Ukraine has been trying to get its seat at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as its Western allies have been lending it support in its war with Russia.

Meanwhile, Moscow has also kept up its vow to not give up.

Earlier on December 9, an explosive device placed under a car in the Russian-occupied Donetsk, reportedly targeted Sergei Yevsyukov, the former head of the Olenivka Prison where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war died in a missile strike in July 2022.

(with AP inputs)