Ukrainian spies target Russian figures in increasingly bold attacks

What is surprising is how complicated this operation is. Ukrainian sources told the BBC that the explosives were hidden in an electric motorbike and detonated by remote control.

The victim, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, is believed to be the highest-ranking military official killed outside a combat zone since the full-scale invasion began.

His assassination shocked the Russian military and political world. Sources from Ukraine’s SBU security agency said they were behind this incident.

There have been many Ukrainian operations targeting Russian forces on Ukrainian territory.

However, the fact that Ukrainian intelligence was able to target the head of the Russian military’s chemical, biological and radiological protection outside his home southeast of Moscow has raised questions about security. of Russia and how far Ukraine’s capabilities can expand.

Choosing a scooter to attack is a smart move. They are abandoned everywhere on the streets of Moscow and attract little attention.

But as they detonated the device at the right moment, in this case when General Kirillov was leaving the apartment complex with his assistant, the perpetrators must have had some form of visual surveillance – camera or direct observation.

It is believed that his murder was not the first by the SBU on the streets of Russia’s largest cities, so previous attacks on politicians and military officials events in Russia could shed light on how such operations are carried out.

It was April 2023, famous war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky is meeting with supporters at a cafe in St Petersburg as part of a “creative evening”.

During the event at Street Food Bar No. 1, Darya Trepova, who claimed to be an art student, gave him a sculpture of a soldier’s head. A few minutes later, as Tatarsky was placing the gift in the box, it exploded, killing him and injuring many others in the room.

Ms. Trepova then continued to assert at trial that she knew nothing about explosives inside the bust. She admitted that she opposed the war in Ukraine, but she said she was told that inside the bust was a microphone.

The court sentenced her to 27 years in prison.

Regardless of what she knew in advance, there is little doubt that Ukrainian security services used deception to attract local Russians who might be sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause.

Acts can range from organized sabotage to, in this case, bombing.

The SBU is not afraid to send an assassin to achieve its goals, perhaps the most notorious means of assassinating spies.

A year ago, former pro-Russian Ukrainian parliamentarian Ilya Kyva was shot dead in a village outside Moscow. The murderer snuck into the hotel grounds and shot Mr. Kyva twice while he was walking in the park.

Again, Ukraine made no official statement, but sources in the SBU said it was them.

Just five days ago, Russia’s top rocket scientist, Mikhail Shatsky, was shot dead in a forest outside Moscow. In that case, the killing was believed to have been carried out by Ukraine’s military intelligence service, although there has been no confirmation.

Shatsky is responsible for modernizing Russia’s Kh-59 and Kh-69 cruise missiles, which have caused so much destruction and casualties in Ukraine.

Kirillov’s murder, which took place days after Shatsky’s murder, shows how deeply Ukrainian spies have penetrated into Russia.

It’s not just politicians or Russians linked to the military who are being attacked.

In August 2022, Darya Dugina was murdered in a car bomb, in an apparent message to her father, Aleksander Dugin, considered a Russian ideologue justifying Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine .

According to the Russian investigation, two Ukrainian citizens were involved in the attack – a clear example of Ukraine sending agents deep into Russia to “eliminate” their targets.

Natalia Vovk, 43, crossed the border into Russia from the occupied Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. She then teamed up with another Ukrainian to rent a garage to assemble the bomb. Both Ukrainians, as alleged in the trial, escaped Russia the day before Dugina was killed.

All these attacks show the diverse methods that Ukrainian special services can use, but some experts believe that it may not have been Kyiv who assassinated Lieutenant General Kirillov.

Yury Karin, a military observer in Kyiv, said it could be the result of an internal power struggle within the Russian military or an attempt by the Kremlin to eliminate one of the key witnesses to the crime. evil war.

If it had been SBU, he said, the message would have been clear. “Even within the Moscow ring road, Russian generals cannot feel safe.”