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Near the scene of the explosion that killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov in Moscow on Tuesday.Credit...Yuri Kochetkov/EPA, via Shutterstock
Russia detained a man suspected of killing a general The Russian authorities said yesterday that they had detained a suspect in the killing of a senior military officer, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov. The officer, who died in a bombing on Tuesday, was the target of the most prominent political assassination in Russia since the invasion.
The suspect, a 29-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan whose name was not released, was captured in a village outside Moscow, a spokeswoman for Russia’s prosecutor’s office said. She said he had confessed that Ukrainian intelligence recruited him to kill Kirillov, who was in charge of the protection forces for the Russian military’s nuclear and chemical weapons.
Analysis: The assassination spread some fear among Russia’s military and political elites. It also eliminated a top military leader who, according to Ukraine, had ordered the use of banned chemical substances. But it won’t do anything to bring an end to the war or help Ukraine’s forces on the battlefield, who are steadily losing ground, my colleague Michael Schwirtz writes.
Diplomacy: Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was in Brussels yesterday to meet with the head of NATO. He will address E.U. leaders during a summit today.
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Credit...Ivor Prickett/The New York Times
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