Ukraine assassinations: what is Kyiv hoping to achieve?

A senior Russian general and his assistant have been killed in Moscow by Ukraine's security services, the latest assassination by Kyiv that has intensified a new front in the conflict.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian military's nuclear, chemical and biological defence forces, was killed in an explosion outside his home on Tuesday evening. It was caused by a remotely detonated bomb hidden inside a scooter, according to Russia's Investigative Committee.

A source in Ukraine's SBU security service told the BBC that Kirillov was "a legitimate target" and alleged that he had carried out war crimes. On Monday, the SBU had charged Kirillov in absentia, claiming that he was "responsible for the mass use of banned chemical weapons" on Ukrainian troops.

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Under Kirillov's leadership, Russia has used chemical weapons more than 4,800 times since February 2022, said the SBU. The US and Britain placed Kirillov under sanctions in October, accusing him of using the "barbaric" First World War era choking agent chloropicrin.

What did the commentators say?

The death of Kirillov bore the "hallmarks of the work of Ukraine's spy agencies inside Russia", said the Financial Times. Kyiv has "cultivated a network of covert operatives to carry out targeted killings of key military personnel and acts of sabotage against their enemies' war machine" in order to "disrupt Moscow’s ongoing invasion".

Ukraine's intelligence agencies rarely claim explicit credit for assassinations, but Kirillov's is the latest in a string of high-profile killings "designed to weaken morale and punish those Kyiv regards guilty of war crimes", said Euractiv. Ukraine, which says Russia's war poses an existential threat to the country, "has made clear it regards such targeted killings as a legitimate tool".

Ukraine's tactics were underlined earlier this month when its intelligence service claimed it had assassinated Mikhail Shatsky, deputy director of a Moscow-based ballistics engineering unit. Speaking to The Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian defence source said: "Anyone who is involved in the development of the Russian military-industrial complex and support of Russian aggression in Ukraine one way or another is a legitimate target."

Indeed, "few doubt the increasingly competent signature of its security services", which is thought to have targeted dozens of figures considered enemies by the Ukrainian state, said The Economist.

But some insiders fear security services have expended too much energy targeting "marginal figures" and mid-level propagandists. "Clowns, prostitutes and jokers are a constant around the Russian government," said one SBU source. "Kill one of them, and another will appear in their place."

Yet these deaths can have "a useful psychological role" in raising "the cost of war crimes and the spirits of ordinary Ukrainians".

What next?

As the most senior Russian military officer to be assassinated inside Russia, Kirillov's killing is "likely to prompt the Russian authorities to review security protocols for the army's top brass and to find a way to avenge his killing", said Euractiv.

His death will be seen by the Kremlin as "not just a blow, but also evidence that Ukraine has the ability to target high-profile officials in Moscow", said the BBC.