Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which will enter the third year in February 2025 sans a peace deal, Moscow detained an Uzbek youth suspect for allegedly killing a top Russian general using only a “scooter bomb,” at his home, the media reported on Wednesday.
According to reports, Russia has detained a Uzbek citizen for planting the bomb that killed Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, 54, on the instructions of Ukraine’s security service. The top general headed the nuclear, biological, and chemical protection forces, but died by a minor bomb.
The 29-year-old Uzbek was recruited by Ukrainian special services and promised USD 100,000 and travel to the European Union, the news agency Tass reported, citing the country’s domestic spy agency, the FSB.
The man was held in the village of Chernoye in the Balashikha district of Moscow, the news agency Ria reported, citing Interior Ministry spokesperson Irina Volk.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Moscow will raise the general’s assassination by Ukraine at the UN Security Council on December 20. Everyone involved in the killing would be found and punished, she said.
Russia also accused Ukraine of repeatedly dropping white phosphorus munitions from drones in September 2024, adding it had evidence of the use of such munitions by Ukraine.
However, Ukraine dismissed this claim as “false and nonsensical”, saying that Kyiv was fully compliant with its international arms control obligations.
“We are confident that by making such false accusations, Moscow seeks to shift blame for its actions and deceive foreign audiences,” foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said.
After recent US President-elect Donald Trump’s statement that he would try a peace deal between the two nations, Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov said that arms control was now a thing of the past because of the lack of trust between Russia and the West. He said Russia had seen increased activity by the US-led NATO military alliance near Russia’s borders.
Meanwhile, North Korean forces have suffered “several hundred” casualties fighting Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk region, a senior US military official said. Pyongyang has sent thousands of soldiers to reinforce Russia’s war effort, including to the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian forces seized territory earlier this year.
“Several hundred casualties is our latest estimate that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has suffered.”
Trump’s incoming Ukraine envoy, retired Lt Gen Keith Kellogg, will travel to Kyiv and several other European capitals in early January on a fact-finding trip, reports said, adding he would visit senior leaders in Kyiv, and his team was working to set up meetings with leaders in other European capitals, such as Rome and Paris, though plans could change.