In Russia, he was viewed as a tireless patriot, fighting for the truth and exposing Western “crimes”.
As head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection troops, Igor Kirillov – who has died in an explosion in Moscow – was accused by the West of overseeing the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Sources from Ukraine’s SBU security service said it it was behind the blast and referred to a special operation against a “war criminal” and a legitimate target.
Kirillov and an aide were killed by explosives planted in an electric scooter, according to Russian officials, which was blown up as he left the building he lived in on Ryazansky Prospekt in south-eastern Moscow.
He had become notorious for outlandish briefings at the Russian defence ministry which prompted the UK Foreign Office to label him as a “significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation”.
Kirillov was far more than just a mouthpiece, heading Russia’s Timoshenko Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Academy, before going on to lead the Russian army’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops in 2017.
The force’s main tasks involve identifying hazards and protecting units from contamination but also “causing loss to the enemy by using flame-incendiary means”, the Russian defence ministry says. That is thought to refer to Russia’s flame-thrower system that can destroy targets with the use of thermobaric warheads.
On the eve of his killing, Ukraine’s SBU declared that he had been named in absentia in a criminal case for the “mass use” of prohibited chemical weapons on the eastern and southern fronts in Ukraine.
It cited “more than 4,800 cases of the enemy using chemical munitions” on Ukrainian territory since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.
It said toxic substances had been used in drone attacks as well as in combat grenades.
Kirillov earned his notoriety from the start of the war with a series of claims directed towards both Ukraine and the West, none of which was based on fact.
Among his most outrageous claims was one that the US had been building biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine. It was used in an attempt to justify the full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour in 2022.
He produced documents in March 2022 which he claimed had been seized by Russia on the day of the invasion on 24 February – which were amplified by pro-Kremlin media but rubbished by independent experts.
Kirillov’s notorious allegations against Ukraine continued into this year.
Last month he claimed that “one of the priority aims” of Ukraine’s counter-offensive into Russia’s Kursk border region was to seize the Kursk nuclear power plant.
