The roots of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine go back decades and run deep. The current conflict is more than one country fighting to take over another; it is — in the words of one U.S. official — a shift in “the world order.”Here are some helpful stories to make sense of it all.
KYIV — A top Russian military leader accused of using banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops was assassinated in Moscow on Tuesday. A source from Ukraine’s security service confirmed to NPR that the security service was behind the killing.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov had been in charge of the Russian military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces since 2017. Kirillov and one of his aides were killed after an explosive device planted in a scooter detonated.
The murder took place near the front of a residential building in southeast Moscow where Kirillov lived, according to Russian state media. A video shared on Russian social media, which NPR can independently verify, shows destroyed windows and burned buildings at the site.
Kirillov was killed a day after Ukrainian security forces filed charges against him in absentia for chemical weapons banned in that war.
The Ukraine security service source who confirmed to NPR that it was behind the assassination spoke under condition of anonymity because this person is not allowed to release the information.
Ukraine’s Security Ministry on Monday published an investigation claiming that Russia had used chemical weapons about 5,000 times against the Ukrainian military since its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Artem Vlasiuk, a Ukrainian colonel in the army’s Directorate of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection, explained to reporters at a news conference in kyiv last week the effects of this use on Ukrainian troops.
“More than 2,000 soldiers with symptoms of chemical poisoning have been sent to military facilities,” Vlasiuk said. He noted that the chemicals included CS gas, or 2-Chlorobenzalmonononitrile, commonly known as tear gas, a chemical agent banned in international warfare.
The United States has accused Russia of using the chemical weapon chloropicrin, a asphyxiating agent, against Ukrainian troops.
Russia denies using chemical weapons in Ukraine and has claimed Ukrainian forces have used toxic agents in the war, which Kyiv denies.
Writing on Telegram, Dmitriy Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, called Kirillov “a true patriot of Russia” and called his assassination a “terrorist attack. ” He accused Ukraine of seeking to “prolong war and death” and “seeking to justify their petty lifestyles to their Western masters. “
He vowed that Ukrainian leaders would “pay in full” for Kirillov’s assassination.
Kirillov was already under sanctions from several countries, including the U.K. and Canada. He is the highest-profile Russian military official to be killed away from the frontline since the 2022 invasion.
Ukraine rarely publicly confirms assassinations. Another targeted killing unofficially connected to Ukraine was the daughter of a Russian nationalist, killed in a 2022 car bombing that investigators thought might have been intended for her father. And a popular Russian military blogger was killed last spring after a statuette he was given at a party in St. Petersburg exploded.
Volodymyr Solohub, Polina Lytvynova and Hanna Palamarenko contributed from kyiv.
An earlier edition of this story incorrectly called Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov as Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.