Russia’s top military counterintelligence officer resigns

Russia’s chief military counterintelligence officer, Colonel-General Nikolai Yuryev, has resigned.

RBC reported this with reference to its own sources.

His resignation came almost immediately after the elimination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the Chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops.

One of RBC’s sources claims that Yuriev’s resignation is related to his retirement. According to him, the decree dismissing Yuriev from his post was signed on December 16, the day before Kirillov’s death.

The source clarified that the decision to resign had been made in the summer. All of his deputies remain in place, and one of them is temporarily responsible for the head’s duties.

The name of the new candidate for the post had not been announced yet, the source emphasized.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his assistant Ilya Polikarpov were killed in the morning of December 17 as a result of an explosion near a residential building on Ryazansky Prospekt in Moscow.

The Russian Investigative Committee opened criminal cases over the terrorist attack and murder. The suspect is an Uzbek citizen who has been detained.

The day before the incident, on December 16, the SSU notified Kirillov in absentia of suspicion under Articles 28 and 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (war crimes committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy).

“On Kirillov’s order, more than 4,800 cases of enemy use of chemical munitions have been recorded since the beginning of the full-scale war,” the SSU said.

An SSU source also told the BBC:

“Kirillov was a war criminal and an absolutely legitimate target, as he gave orders to use banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops. Such an ignominious end awaits all those who kill Ukrainians.”