Ukraine’s targeted killings in Russia leave security agencies floundering

The killing of an elite military official on a Moscow street is the latest in a series of assassinations carried out by Ukraine that have exposed weaknesses in Russia’s security services, while sending a message that perpetrators of the war in Ukraine will be held accountable, according to regional security specialists.

Unusually, Kyiv claimed the operation that killed Lt-Gen Igor Kirillov and his assistant through a remote-controlled detonation as he left his apartment on Tuesday morning. “Kirillov was a war criminal and an absolutely legitimate target,” a Ukrainian official said of the man who oversaw Russia’s chemical weapons, which Ukraine – and the UK – alleges have been used illegally during the war.

But in other respects, the assassination mirrored previous, spectacular operations. Kirillov was killed by a bomb attached to a vehicle, as with nationalist TV host Darya Dugina in 2022. He was a prominent pro-war ideologue, as was military blogger, Maxim Fomin, killed in a blast at a St Petersburg cafe last year.

Kirillov was also a high-ranking military official directly implicated in the war in Ukraine, in common with Stanislav Rzhitsky, a submarine commander gunned down in a Krasnodar park. A spate of attacks in recent months, including another car bomb that killed naval commander, Valery Trankovsky, suggests the campaign is ramping up.

Russia’s much-feared internal security agency, the FSB, is floundering against a type of enemy it has never faced before, says Andrei Soldatov, a leading expert on Russia’s security services and founder of the watchdog group Agentura.

Ukraine’s SBU agency, which claimed the hit, has much in common with Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, he said, as they are “adventurous and ruthless”, with the resources and the determination to strike anywhere in Russia – and almost anyone.

Russian media have noted that Ukraine has been able to employ a network of local collaborators in its operations – attention has focussed on the driver of an electric scooter inside which the TNT was placed in Kirillov’s case – that has evaded the Kremlin’s agents.

“The FSB is very good at investigating what already happened, but not very good at collecting intelligence about what’s coming,” said Soldatov, adding that failures are rarely punished.

“[Kirillov’s killing] is a failure, and not the first this year, but it would hardly affect Russia’s agencies,” he said. “Putin will stick to his chosen strategy not to attack his security people to secure their loyalty.”

John Foreman, a British former defence official once based in Moscow, also suggested the assassination exposed weakness in the domestic intelligence agency.

“This was another massive failure by the FSB after a string of similar failures,” he said. “Shows how the organisation has been hollowed out by corruption and focus on operations in Ukraine.”

The campaign may aim to demonstrate to Russian officials far from the front line that they are not safe, Foreman said.

“The Ukrainians have repeatedly shown their ruthlessness in prosecuting covert action inside Russia and occupied Ukraine in a series of ‘spectaculars’ since the assassination of Dugina in 2022,” he said.

“I think one of the aims, beside targeting Kirillov himself, is to remind senior Russian politicians and military officers that there are no ‘no go’ areas, that Ukrainian memories are long, and that there are potentially very serious consequences to planning, directing and conducting Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine.”

Max Hess, a Eurasia specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, points to “Mossadisation” of Ukraine’s security agencies, comparing the assassination campaign to the Israeli agency’s “Wrath of God” killings of perpetrators of the 1972 Munich massacre.

“Ukrainian intelligence has been clear: those senior Russian officials with Ukrainian blood on their hands will not be left to live out their lives without fear of being held to account,” he said. “I expect it continues even if Ukraine suffers more notable battlefield setbacks.”

Russian military blogs dismissed the killing of Kirillov as an ineffective gesture. “Will the murder of a Russian general affect the course of hostilities? No, of course not,” posted Rybar, a channel run by former defence ministry official, Mikhail Zvinchuk, suggesting the attack was designed “to distract the domestic audience”.

But Russia will have to respond to the highest-profile killing yet, Soldatov believes, having failed to find an answer to Ukraine’s covert operations.

“Because the attack was meant to be a public message, I expect some response,” he said, suggesting this could be offensive or defensive. “The FSB has enough manpower to place all top people under protection.”

Foreman believes any steps are unlikely to resolve deep-rooted issues. “Expect a flurry of tokenistic security measures and arrests to show action, but the poor state of the FSB will remain,” he said.