The United States was not aware of it in advance and was not involved. Matthew Miller, Spokesperson of the US Department of State, announced this at Tuesday’s Department
press briefing and in response to a question about the explosion in Moscow that killed Igor Kirillov, the head of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops of the Russian Armed Forces.
"I don’t have an assessment. It’s not something that we were involved in. Obviously, he was a general who was involved in a number of atrocities. He was involved in the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian military; it’s something the United States has been – has publicly assessed before, that the – that the Russian military under his – in – a unit under his command has used riot agents in violation of international law on the battlefield. But with respect to this individual incident, I don’t have any comment," said Miller.
A Russian lieutenant general and his assistant were killed by an explosion in a Moscow residential building on Tuesday morning, Reuters reports.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian Armed Forces' radiological, chemical and biological defense troops, was killed in the explosion, said the Russian Investigative Committee.
Preliminary information indicated that the explosion occurred following the detonation of an explosive device with an equivalent power of approximately 1 kilogram of TNT, according to law enforcement agencies quoted by TASS on Tuesday.
The explosive device was planted in a scooter, said the committee, adding that a criminal case has been opened in connection with the killing.
The Ukrainian military announced on Tuesday that the attack on Kirillov was a special operation carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine.
A day earlier, the Security Service of Ukraine had accused Kirillov of deploying banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces, labeling him a war criminal.
Russian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on social media that Kirillov had devoted himself to exposing a series of biological laboratory activities carried out by the United States in Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said that Ukraine's attempt to intimidate the Russian people is doomed to failure and will inevitably lead to retaliation against Ukraine's top military and political leadership.
