The recent assassination of Kirillov is just the latest tragic event in a string of targeted attacks on Russian military personnel. The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) reported on Monday that over 4,800 instances of Russian deployment of chemical munitions were carried out under Kirillov’s directives since the onset of the conflict. Specifically, these incidents involved grenades containing irritant chemical substances. This troubling development follows previous coverage by CNN on Russia’s utilization of tear gas as a weapon in Ukraine.
Prior to his untimely demise, Kirillov and his government entity faced sanctions from the United States due to allegations of employing the chemical agent chloropicrin against troops in Ukraine. Chloropicrin, known to cause adverse effects on the eyes, skin, throat, and lungs, was originally developed as a tear gas during the trench warfare of World War I. Its use was prohibited in 1993 under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a treaty to which Russia is a committed signatory.
The U.S. State Department declared in May that Russia had resorted to employing such banned weapons with the aim of dislodging Ukrainian forces from their fortified positions and gaining tactical advantages on the battlefield. In a show of solidarity with the U.S., the United Kingdom also imposed sanctions on Kirillov for his alleged involvement in the “deployment of barbaric chemical weapons” in Ukraine.
Throughout the war’s duration of nearly three years, Kirillov consistently propagated baseless accusations regarding Ukraine’s supposed utilization of chemical weapons. The UK condemned Kirillov for serving as a key proponent of Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns. Notably, in October 2022, as Ukrainian forces made significant advancements by reclaiming territories in Kherson and other regions, dealing a severe blow to Russia’s invasion efforts, Kirillov unfoundedly claimed that Ukraine was plotting to detonate a “dirty bomb,” dispersing radioactive materials within its own borders. He went as far as stating, “This work is in its final stage.”
Further stoking tensions, in November of the same year, Kirillov alleged that one of Ukraine’s primary objectives in penetrating Russia’s Kursk region was to seize control of the Kursk nuclear power plant. Such inflammatory rhetoric only heightened the already precarious situation in the region, contributing to a climate of fear and uncertainty among the affected populations.
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