Agencies MOSCOW

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops,  and  his assistant were killed when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter went off  —AFP

Russia's Federal Security Service said on Thursday it had foiled several plots by Ukrainian intelligence services (SBU) to kill high-ranking Russian officers and their families in Moscow using bombs disguised as power banks or document folders.

On December 17, Ukraine's SBU intelligence service killed Lieutenant General Kirillov, chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, in Moscow outside his apartment building by detonating a bomb attached to an electric scooter.

An SBU source confirmed to Reuters that the Ukrainian intelligence agency had been behind the hit. Russia said the killing was a terrorist attack by Ukraine, with which it has been at war since February 2022, and vowed revenge.

"The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation has prevented a series of assassination attempts on high-ranking military personnel of the Defence Ministry," the FSB said. "Four Russian citizens involved in the preparation of these attacks have been detained," it said in a statement.

Ukraine's SBU did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said that the Russian citizens had been recruited by the Ukrainian intelligence services.

One of the men retrieved a bomb disguised as a portable charger in Moscow that was to be attached with magnets to the car of one of the Defence Ministry's top officials, the FSB said.

Another Russian man was tasked with reconnaissance of senior Russian defence officials, it said, with one plot involving the delivery of a bomb disguised as a document folder. "An explosive device disguised as a portable charger (power bank), with magnets attached, had to be placed under the official car of one of the senior leaders of the Russian Defence Ministry," it said.