A top Russian general accused by Ukraine of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops was killed in Moscow by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service on Tuesday morning in the most high-profile killing of its kind.
Nato had taken over coordination of Western military aid to Ukraine from the United States as planned, said a source on Tuesday, in a move widely seen as aiming to safeguard the support mechanism against Nato sceptic US president-elect Donald Trump.
The possible deployment of foreign peacekeeping troops in Ukraine could be raised at a meeting of European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.
Ukraine kills Russian chemical weapons chief in Moscow
A top Russian general accused by Ukraine of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops was killed in Moscow by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service on Tuesday morning in the most high-profile killing of its kind.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside an apartment building along with his assistant when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter went off, said Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes.
An SBU source confirmed to Reuters that the Ukrainian intelligence agency had been behind the hit. “The liquidation of the chief of the radiation and chemical protection troops of the Russian Federation is the work of the SBU,” said the source.
The source said that a scooter containing explosives was detonated, killing Kirillov and his aide, as they stepped out of a building on Ryazansky Prospekt in Moscow.
Unverified video footage of the attack circulating on social media showed two men exiting the building to get into a car followed by a large explosion as the two men remained on the pavement.
Kirillov (54) was the most senior Russian military officer to be assassinated inside Russia by Ukraine and his murder is likely to prompt the Russian authorities to review security protocols for the army’s top brass.
Former president Dmitry Medvedev, now a senior Russian security official, told a meeting shown on state TV that Moscow would avenge what he called an act of terrorism.
“Law enforcement agencies must find the killers in Russia,” said Medvedev. “Everything must be done to destroy the masterminds [of the killing] who are in Kyiv. We know who these masterminds are. They are the military and political leadership of Ukraine,” he said.
There was no immediate comment from President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow holds Ukraine responsible for a string of high-profile assassinations on its soil designed to weaken morale and punish those Kyiv regards guilty of war crimes. Ukraine, which says Russia’s war against it poses an existential threat to the Ukrainian state, has made clear it regards such targeted killings as a legitimate tool.
Russia denies Ukrainian allegations it uses chemical weapons on the battlefield and Kirillov, who was married with two sons, was himself sometimes shown on state TV giving briefings at the Defence Ministry in which he accused Ukraine of violating nuclear safety protocols or the West of various alleged crimes.
Britain in October imposed sanctions on Kirillov and his nuclear defence forces for using riot control agents and over multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin on the battlefield.
Such agents, Ukraine has alleged, are used to disorientate its troops, leaving them unable to defend themselves against Russian attacks.
Kirillov was murdered a day after Ukrainian state prosecutors charged him in absentia with the alleged use of banned chemical weapons, the Kyiv Independent cited the SBU as saying.
He was also listed in a sprawling unofficial Ukrainian database of people considered to be enemies of the country called Myrotvorets (Peacemaker). A photograph of Kirillov on the website was overwritten with the word “Liquidated” in red letters on Tuesday morning.
Russia says Ukraine has carried out a string of targeted assassinations since the start of Moscow’s full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022.
The most high-profile cases include the 2022 killing of Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, the murder of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a 2023 cafe bombing, and the shooting last year of a Russian submarine commander accused of war crimes by Kyiv.
Nato ‘takes over coordination of military aid to Kyiv from US’
Nato had taken over coordination of Western military aid to Ukraine from the US as planned, said a source on Tuesday, in a move widely seen as aiming to safeguard the support mechanism against Nato sceptic US president-elect Donald Trump.
The step, coming after a delay of several months, gives Nato a more direct role in the war against Russia’s invasion while stopping well short of committing its own forces.
Diplomats, however, acknowledge that the handover to Nato may have a limited effect given that the US under Trump could still deal a major setback to Ukraine by slashing its support, as it is the alliance’s dominant power and provides the majority of arms to Kyiv.
Trump, who will take office in January, has said he wants to end the war in Ukraine swiftly but not how he aims to do so. He has long criticised the scale of US financial and military aid to Ukraine.
The headquarters of Nato’s new Ukraine mission, dubbed Nato Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (Nsatu), is located at Clay Barracks, a US base in the German town of Wiesbaden.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters it was now fully operational. No public reason has been given for the delays.
In the past, the US-led Ramstein group, an ad hoc coalition of some 50 nations named after a US air base in Germany where it first met, has coordinated Western military supplies to Kyiv.
Polish defence minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said last week in an interview with Reuters that after the Nato summit in Washington, the alliance took responsibility for the hub in Jasionka, Poland — the main transit hub for foreign aid to Ukraine — to a greater extent.
“The alliance decided that it will protect it to a greater extent; it will be more involved,” said Kosiniak-Kamysz. He added that when the alliance takes responsibility, it also designates countries to take care of its protection.
In November, Germany offered the redeployment of its Patriot air defence systems to protect the hub in Poland.
Meanwhile, the outgoing Biden administration in Washington is scrambling to ship as many weapons as possible to Kyiv amid fears that Trump may cut deliveries of military hardware to Ukraine.
Zelensky says foreign peacekeepers idea could be raised at Brussels meeting
The possible deployment of foreign peacekeeping troops in Ukraine could be raised at a meeting of European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday, said President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday.
The meeting to discuss support for Ukraine, almost three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, will gather the leaders of Germany, France, Poland and Nato, among others, according to sources.
The Ukrainian leader publicly floated the idea of foreign troops being deployed until Ukraine could join Nato during a meeting with a German politician on 9 December.
The possibility was first raised by French President Emmanuel Macron in February but no consensus was reached among European leaders on the matter.
Answering questions from reporters about it potentially being discussed in Brussels, Zelensky said that “everyone who will be there has the right to raise this or that issue.
“There could be questions not only about the [foreign] contingent, but also questions that Ukraine will raise,” he told a joint press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Lviv.
Zelensky said the urgent strengthening of Ukraine would be the main thing to discuss. He mentioned long-range defence capabilities, allied investment in Ukrainian weapons production and security guarantees among other topics.
The meeting comes at a crucial point as Ukraine urges its allies to bolster it both on the battlefield and diplomatically before any potential talks with Russia.
Slovakia’s SPP, partners seek continued Ukraine gas transit
Slovakia’s main gas buyer SPP and groups from Hungary, Austria and Italy joined on Tuesday to warn the European Commission of the risks of an end to natural gas transit via Ukraine, as EU officials kept out of talks to keep Russian gas flowing.
Slovakia, receiving gas from Russia via pipelines in Ukraine, has been in talks to try to avoid Russian gas flows stopping when a transit contract between Kyiv and Moscow expires at the end of the year.
Ukraine, locked in a 33-month-old war with Russia, has said repeatedly it would not extend the gas transit agreement.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Monday that Ukraine was willing to agree to a deal enabling gas to transit through its territory as long as it was not of Russian origin.
“The declaration that we have prepared in SPP is intended to support the continuation of gas transit through the territory of Ukraine and the preservation of its gas infrastructure,” said SPP chief executive Vojtech Ferencz.
“It is the most advantageous solution not only for gas consumers in Europe, but also for Ukraine itself.”
SPP said its declaration was signed by Slovak pipeline operator Eustream, Hungarian groups MVM and MOL along with industry associations from Italy, Austria and Hungary.
They sent the declaration to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “so that she has first-hand information about the threat to energy and economic security in our region,” said Ferencz.
A spokesperson said on Tuesday the commission had received the groups’ declaration but was not in talks to extend the transit contract and had no interest in keeping Russian gas transit via Ukraine.
Ukraine ‘uncovers 12 agents spying for Russia’
Ukraine’s SBU security service said on Tuesday it had uncovered 12 agents spying for Russia to identify the locations of F-16 fighter jets and air defence systems across Ukraine.
It detained the alleged organiser and four key accomplices on suspicion of treason and sharing information about the location of Ukrainian military hardware, according to a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
The network members worked separately to track down military airfields and air defence locations across five regions in Ukraine’s south and northeast, as well as the addresses of companies working on electronic warfare.
Ukraine received its first long-awaited delivery of F-16 jets this summer and has been deploying them for operations within Ukraine, including for air defence during Russia’s large-scale air assaults.
The network included some “deserters who left the armed forces units without permission and were recruited by the Russian special service while hiding from justice,” said the SBU.
The network’s members used acquaintances serving on the frontline in Ukraine’s military who divulged information without knowing how it would be used, said the intelligence service.
They then conducted further reconnaissance near potential targets before passing information to the group’s leader who in turn passed it on to a supervisor in Russia’s military intelligence.
The SBU had “neutralised” the agent network and work was continuing to hold its other members accountable, it said. The charges could carry a life sentence.
Russia intensifies Kursk assaults, piles pressure in the east
Moscow had intensified its attacks on Ukrainian forces battling to hold an enclave in Russia’s Kursk region and also increased pressure in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, said Ukraine’s top army commander on Tuesday.
As the war approaches its third year, Ukrainian troops are weary and outnumbered along the 1,170km frontline.
“For the third day the enemy is conducting intensive assaults in the Kursk region,” Oleksandr Syrskyi told government and regional officials in an online speech. He added that Russia was “actively” using North Korean troops who were taking significant losses.
The Ukrainian military said in its daily report that the number of combat clashes in the Kursk direction grew to 68 in the past 24 hours, up from a daily tally of around 40 at the end of last week.
Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August but since then it has lost more than 40% of the territory it controlled there.
Military analysts say the incursion has extended an already long frontline, adding more strain on the Ukrainian troops.
Syrskyi said fighting was also escalating in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian forces were advancing at their fastest pace this year. He told government and regional officials that Russian troops continued to focus their assaults on the strategic cities of Pokrovsk and Kurahove. DM