Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow detains suspect in killing of Putin’s general as North Korea faces heavy losses

Russia will raise the asssassination in Moscow of top Russian general Igor Kirillov by Ukraine at the UN security council on Friday, its foreign ministry said.

Angered by the killing, Russia will find everyone involved in the killing and punish them, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

Lieutenant general Kirillov, who was the chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed in Moscow yesterday.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said in a statement today that the unnamed suspect had told them during questioning that he had come to Moscow where he had received an improvised explosive device for the hit.

The statement said he had described how he had placed the device on an electric scooter which he had parked outside the entrance of the apartment block where Igor Kirillov lived.

The statement said the suspect, who was born in 1995, had been offered $100,000 for his role in the murder and residency in a European country.

Investigators cited him as saying that he had set up a surveillance camera in a hire car nearby and that the organisers of the assassination, who he said had been based in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, had used the camera to track Kirillov and remotely detonated the device when he had left the building.

Investigators said they were identifying other people involved in the hit and the daily Kommersant newspaper reported that one other suspect had been detained.

Russia has detained an Uzbek citizen who investigators believe placed the bomb inside an electric scooter which killed General Igor Kirillov on the instructions of Ukraine’s security service, the Investigative Committee said.

The top Russian general accused by Ukraine of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops was assassinated in Moscow by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service yesterday in the most high-profile killing of its kind.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, didn’t name the suspect, but said he was born in 1995. According to a statement by the FSB, the suspect said himself that he was recruited by Ukrainian special services.

A senior Russian general was killed by a bomb hidden under an e-scooter outside his apartment in Moscow. Igor Kirillov was the head of the Russian military’s nuclear, biological, and chemical protection forces. His assistant was also killed in the attack.

A Ukrainian security service official has said Kyiv was responsible for the attack.

The attack came a day after Ukraine’s security service levelled criminal charges against Lt Gen Igor Kirillov for using chemical weapons during Russia’s invasion.

Ukraine’s security services say it has recorded nearly 5,000 occasions when Russia used chemical weapons on the battlefield since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Sir Keir Starmer has for the first time lifted the lid on his Brexit reset plans for a new defence pact with the EU.

It came as the prime minister issued a rallying call to the European Union for closer defence cooperation in an exclusive interview with The Independent.

As Sir Keir prepares for a Donald Trump presidency with the potential withdrawal of US support from Ukraine and Europe, he shared his vision for coordination across funding, training and the use of British troops.

Sitting down with The Independent in Estonia, the prime minister said the UK must work “as effectively as we can with our partners” to bolster Ukraine’s position amid an increasingly volatile global landscape and heightened tensions with Russia.

Russian forces are around 3km (1.9 miles) to the south of the strategically important eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, open source maps published by Russian and Ukrainian war bloggers show.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top commander, has said his troops in and around Pokrovsk have prepared for the approaching Russians by repeatedly strengthening their defensive positions and he has spoken of sending new reserves, ammunition and equipment to bolster the defenders.

But why does Russia want to capture Pokrovsk?

Moscow says it has annexed Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and sees taking control of Pokrovsk as an important stepping stone to incorporating the entire region into Russia. Kyiv and the West reject Russia’s territorial claims as illegal and accuse Moscow of prosecuting a war of colonial conquest.

Control of the city, which the Russian media call “the gateway to Donetsk”, would allow Moscow to severely disrupt Ukrainian supply lines along the eastern front and boost its campaign to capture Chasiv Yar, which sits on higher ground offering potential control of a wider area.

Squeezing the Ukrainian military’s access to the road network in the vicinity would make it harder for Kyiv’s troops to hold pockets of territory either side of Pokrovsk, which could allow Russia to consolidate and advance the frontline.

Moscow has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian forces battling to hold an enclave in Russia’s Kursk region and increased pressure in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine’s top army commander said in an evening update yesterday.

“For the third day the enemy is conducting intensive assaults in the Kursk region,” Oleksandr Syrskyi told government and regional officials in an online speech. He added that Russia was “actively” using North Korean troops who were taking significant losses.

Mr Syrskyi said fighting was also escalating in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian forces were advancing at their fastest pace this year.

He told government and regional officials that Russian troops continued to focus their assaults on the logistical centres of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.

A US military official said North Korean troops had suffered several hundred casualties in Kursk region, and their ranks had ranged from lower-level troops to “very near the top”.

As the war approaches its third year, Ukrainian troops are weary and outnumbered along the 1,170km (727 mile) frontline.