Presidential Office reacts to elimination of Russian general Kirillov
Photo: Mykhailo Podolyak, Advisor to the Head of the Presidential Office (Vitalii Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
All killings and terrorist attacks on the territory of Russia are an integral part of the chaos. They are merely attempts to conceal internal criminal affairs or shift responsibility on someone else, stated Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to the Head of the Office of the President, in a comment to the RBC-Ukraine YouTube channel.
"There are many groups in Russia that oppose each other. We see not only the killing of Kirillov (Igor Kirillov, Russian general - ed.), but also the killings of missile system designers, CEOs of military enterprises, and so on. These are either attempts to hide internal corruption cases or the attempts to shift the blame on someone else for certain failures," Podolyak said.
The advisor also noted that ethnic factors play a role in Russia's internal conflicts, citing the detention of an Uzbek citizen accused of eliminating Kirillov.
Podolyak added that Russian propaganda often claims "recruitment by Ukrainian intelligence." If this were true, the situation in Russia might be different. However, such claims are exaggerated.
"Therefore, I would advise media platforms, especially Western ones, to use such terminology cautiously, like claiming that Ukrainian intelligence eliminates someone on Russian territory. They are destroying themselves," the advisor emphasized.
Elimination of Kirillov
On December 16, Ukraine's Security Service (SSU) served General Kirillov with suspicion in absentia for using banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military. According to investigators, he was involved in over 4,800 attacks using CN (chloroacetophenone) and CS (chlorobenzalmalononitrile) agents since the start of the war.
By December 17, news of his elimination surfaced. Together with the general, his assistant Ilya Polikarpov, who collaborated with Russian propaganda, was killed.
Sources from RBC-Ukraine report that the general's elimination was an operation of the SSU.
