Russian law enforcement identified the suspects using surveillance footage.
The 112 Telegram channel claimed the two men were apprehended on Dec. 17 and had allegedly provided information about the “organizers” of the explosion.
Russian state-controlled news agency TASS, citing the FSB, reported that one detainee, a 29-year-old Uzbekistan national, admitted to being “recruited by Ukrainian intelligence” to plant the explosive in exchange for a $100,000 reward. The FSB later released a video of the suspect’s interrogation.
General Kirillov’s assassination
On Dec. 17, Russia’s Investigative Committee confirmed that Kirillov and his aide were killed in Moscow in an explosion. Sources within Ukrainian intelligence told NV that the attack was a planned operation by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU). The explosive device was reportedly attached to an electric scooter parked near the entrance of a building on Ryazansky Prospekt in Moscow.
Just a day before, on Dec. 16, Ukraine’s Security Service had formally accused Kirillov in absentia of orchestrating Russia’s widespread use of banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities have reportedly documented 4,800 cases of chemical weapon use by Russian troops since the full-scale invasion began.