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Moscow, Russia
Russian diplomat Igor Kirillov, who was killed in an electric scooter explosion in Moscow, was the head of Russia's Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection troops.
Lieutenant General Kirillov was assassinated by Ukraine's SBU intelligence service on Tuesday (Dec 17), according to a report by Reuters.
Kirillov was killed outside an apartment building along with his assistant when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter went off, said Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes. According to the report, a bomb was hidden inside an e-scooter which was parked near the apartment building.
Later, Ukraine claimed responsibility for his killing and said that a Ukrainian intelligence agency had been behind the hit.
Who was Igor Kirillov?
In Russia, Kirillov was seen as a tireless patriot, fighting for the truth and exposing Western "crimes". He was also accused by the West of overseeing the use of chemical weapons in their war with Ukraine.
He got popular for his offbeat briefings at the Russian defence ministry, which also provoked the UK Foreign Office to label him as a "significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation".
He was much more than a mouthpiece, as he was heading Russia's Timoshenko Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Academy, before going on to lead the Russian army's Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops in 2017.
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The troops were responsible for identifying hazards and protecting units from contamination but also "causing loss to the enemy by using flame-incendiary means".
The UK Foreign Office said that the force Kirillov commanded had deployed "barbaric chemical weapons in Ukraine", stressing that it highlighted what according to them was the widespread use of riot control agents and "multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin".
Kirillov got his notoriety since the beginning of Russia's war with Ukraine as he put forward certain claims directed towards both Ukraine and the West. However, these claims were not based on any facts.
One of his outrageous claims was that the US had been building biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine.
Last month, he also claimed that "one of the priority aims" of Ukraine's counter-offensive into Russia's Kursk border region was to seize the Kursk nuclear power plant.
(With inputs from agencies)