Igor Kirillov: Russia’s chemical weapons chief and mouthpiece killed in Moscow

As head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection troops, Igor Kirillov – who has died in an explosion in Moscow – was accused by the West of overseeing the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine.
In Russia, he was viewed as a tireless patriot, fighting for the truth and exposing Western “crimes”.
Sources from Ukraine’s SBU security service said it it was behind the blast and referred to a special operation against a “war criminal” and a legitimate target.
Kirillov and an aide were killed by explosives planted in an electric scooter, according to Russian officials, which was blown up as he left the building he lived in on Ryazansky Prospekt in south-eastern Moscow.
He had become notorious for outlandish briefings at the Russian defence ministry which prompted the UK Foreign Office to label him as a “significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation”.
Kirillov was far more than just a mouthpiece, heading Russia’s Timoshenko Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Academy, before going on to lead the Russian army’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops in 2017.
The force’s main tasks involve identifying hazards and protecting units from contamination but also “causing loss to the enemy by using flame-incendiary means”, the Russian defence ministry says. That is thought to refer to Russia’s flame-thrower system that can destroy targets with the use of thermobaric warheads.
The UK Foreign Office said that the force Kirillov commanded had deployed “barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine”, highlighting what it said was the widespread use of riot control agents and “multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin”.