On 17 December, in the early morning, one of Russia’s most important and well-known generals was assassinated in front of his home in Moscow. Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov was the head of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Protection forces. (His brief was not, as some mainstream Western media have misleadingly claimed, leading troops focused on the use of such weapons but on defenses against them.) The assassination was carried out with a bomb attached to a parked electric scooter and detonated remotely. The explosion also killed Kirillov’s adjutant, Lieutenant Ilya Polikarpov, and injured their driver.
A suspect was arrested quickly. According to Russia’s Investigative Committee, which is in charge of the case, he is a young man from Uzbekistan who has admitted that he acted on behalf of Ukraine and for money. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service has openly claimed responsibility, even if only after some disinformation-game hiccups in Kiev, about which more below.
The one aspect of this killing that is likely to attract most controversy is its assessment in a legal framework. Kirillov was a high-ranking Russian officer; indeed, according to Reuters, “the most senior Russian military officer to be assassinated in Russia by Ukraine.” And, there clearly are ongoing – whatever you call them – large-scale armed hostilities between Russia and Ukraine that fall under the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC, aka humanitarian law), the rules that should bind those engaged in fighting. Yet Russia sees the assassination as a combination of crimes, most importantly as murder and terrorism. Ukraine insists that this was, on the contrary, an act of legitimate killing in war. A UN official has taken Ukraine’s side, to which Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has forcefully objected. Russia will also raise the issue of the assassination at the UN Security Council.
What to make of the above? This is, in strictly legal terms, a complex case. I, for one, won’t try to offer a definitive categorization. Yet there are several points everyone has to consider: This is not the first Ukrainian assassination in Russia. Previous victims have included the journalist daughter of a public........