Wednesday briefing: The world waits after Ukraine assassinates top Putin general in Moscow

Good morning.

In the early hours of yesterday morning, Russian general Igor Kirillov and his deputy were killed when a bomb concealed in an e-scooter detonated as they left an apartment. Ukraine’s SBU security service swiftly claimed responsibility for the attack, which stands as one of the most audacious assassinations of a senior Russian military figure since the war began almost three years ago. Russian authorities arrested a 29-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan early today, the news agency Tass reported, citing the FSB, the country’s domestic spy agency.

Kirillov commanded the military’s chemical, biological and radiological weapons unit. Hailed as a patriot at home, by Kyiv he is regarded as a war criminal over alleged use of prohibited chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops. Ukraine has asserted that he was an “absolutely legitimate target”.

For today’s newsletter, I spoke with the Guardian’s Russian affairs correspondent, Pjotr Sauer, about the significance of this attack and its potential ramifications. That’s coming up right after the headlines.

Five big stories

1. Police | Police intelligence missed clues about the dangers posed by the far right before the summer riots across England, a police chief has said. Andy Cooke, the chief inspector of constabulary, also said police were too slow to mobilise after disorder broke out, meaning some violence was worse than it would otherwise have been, with the chance to thwart some of it missed.

2. UK news | Sara Sharif’s mother, Olga Domin, called her daughter’s murderers “sadists and executioners” as they were jailed for life. Domin joined the Old Bailey hearing remotely as Urfan Sharif, 43, and Beinash Batool, 30, were sentenced for killing the schoolgirl.

3. Business | Amazon is to settle a group claim from delivery drivers that it deprived them of thousands of pounds, the Guardian has learned, ending a suit that lawyers had said could cost the company £140m.

4. Parliament | The Commons should consider a move to electronic voting, a group of more than 60 backbenchers have said, with the current system of filing physically through voting lobbies taking up to a fifth of their working day.

5. Climate crisis | The world’s coal use is expected to reach a fresh high of 8.7bn tonnes this year, and remain at near-record levels for years as a result of a global gas crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In depth: ‘This will send shock waves in the Russian military establishment’

Ukrainian officials say Kirillov, who had been the head of Russia’s nuclear protection forces since 2017, was targeted specifically because he presided over “the massive use of banned chemical weapons” against Ukraine’s military. According to the SBU, chemical weapons were used more than 4,800 times since the start of the war – and Ukraine placed the blame directly on Kirillov.

Kyiv says that Moscow’s use of such weapons has become “systemic”. The UK and US have also accused Russia of using banned chemical weapons on the battlefield; Washington sanctioned Russia for the use of chloropicrin, an agent notorious from the first world war, against Ukrainian troops; and the UK sanctioned Kirillov directly in October, stating that he was “responsible for helping deploy … inhumane chemical weapons” on the battlefields of Ukraine.

“There’s a second reason why Ukraine targeted him,” Pjotr adds: his media profile. Kirillov became known for his outrageous briefings that falsely accused Ukraine of various crimes including developing a “dirty” radioactive bomb. Some claims verged on the “completely ridiculous”, Pjotr says, such as when Kirillov said that Ukraine was working with the US to develop drones that could give malaria to Russian soldiers.

How significant is this assassination?

Less than a day before his killing, the SBU issued an arrest warrant for Kirillov for alleged war crimes. His death is a symbolic win for Kyiv as “it shows that Ukraine’s hand reaches very far and that they have men operating within Russia”, Pjotr says.

“This will send shock waves in the Russian military establishment. I spoke to a former defence official this morning who said that many were shaken within the defence ministry that such a senior official was killed in Moscow,” he adds. “Other officials will probably get around-the-clock security now because of this.”

It is not going to tip the scale of how the war is going – Russia is on the offensive and is making territorial gains. “But I think Ukraine is trying to show that everyone who is responsible for the war will eventually be punished one way or another, and if they aren’t able to prosecute them, they will find other ways to punish these men,” Pjotr says.

The news will lead to a morale boost in Kyiv and embarrass and anger Russian authorities, who are treating the killing as a terrorist attack.

How did Ukraine pull this off?

There are a number of different theories circulating as to how Kyiv was able to execute this plan.

“Ukraine could have had someone on the ground or the device could have been detonated from a distance. There is also a chance that Ukraine used Russian anti-Putin resistance fighters to do this,” Pjotr says.

Ukraine has already demonstrated that it has the ability to carry out extraterritorial killings. Last week, Kyiv claimed responsibility for killing a senior scientist who was working on weapons and rockets that Russia uses in its war in Ukraine.

And in 2022, Russia accused the Ukrainian special services of killing Darya Dugina, the daughter of ultranationalist Putin ally Alexander Dugin, in a car bomb in Moscow. Ukraine denied it carried out the attack.

Even though Russia knows that Ukraine is capable of such operations, it is clearly not able to prevent them, Pjotr says: “Ukraine is really sending a signal that they are not only going to kill generals and military figures on the battlefield, but they will also target those responsible for the war inside Russia.”

The response inside Russia

Russia said on Tuesday only that it had “opened a criminal case into the murder of two servicemen”. Russia’s RIA news agency reported that the former president Dmitry Medvedev, now a senior Russian security official, said Ukraine’s military and political leadership faced revenge.

The Kremlin has also not yet indicated how it will retaliate. “Russia has been doing its own hybrid campaign against the west,” Pjotr says. There was a foiled plot to assassinate the head of a German weapons manufacturing company and attempts at sabotaging key undersea cables. “I think that will continue and probably escalate after this,” he says.

Although there were reports that residents were frightened by the explosion, the incident will probably only “harden the mood in Moscow”, Pjotr adds, “with Russians demanding more rockets fired at Ukraine”.

Russian officials will use this attack to further justify their war in Ukraine and reject any calls for a ceasefire, which they have been doing anyway. “They will use this to rally the nation around the war and insist that they have to keep fighting for regime change and make other massive demands from Ukraine,” Pjotr says.

What else we’ve been reading

• I never thought I would in any way take seriously the 80s boyband Bros or its constituent twins, the Goss brothers, but damn you Simon Hattenstone, this interview with Matt Goss felt raw and humanising. Warren Murray, Guardian international desk

• Ruth Michaelson’s analysis provides an incisive examination of how Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “domestic balancing act” regarding the Syrian crisis ultimately worked in his favour. Nimo

• Georgia “the country” has a new, no-longer-elected president appointed by its dubiously re-elected, pro-Russian Georgian Dream party government. The old president isn’t having it, and neither are ordinary Georgians who continue to mount large-scale protests on the streets of Tbilisi. The Economist examines the state of play. Warren

• “In questions of people’s essential freedoms, it is not sustainable for the country to be divided between freedom in some states and unfreedom in others”: that’s Moira Donegan on the legal battle in the US over the interstate mailing of abortion pills. Nimo

• A new Netflix documentary delves into the chaotic world of The Jerry Springer Show, revisiting the iconic program 25 years after it first debuted on American television screens. Emine Saner explores what the show’s producers make of their controversial creation in hindsight. Nimo

Sport

Media | The Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson has been rewarded for her remarkable year with the BBC sports personality of the year award, with darts prodigy Luke Littler, 17, second and the cricketer Joe Root third.

Football | Football fans will be banned from drinking alcohol in stadiums at the 2034 World Cup after the tournament was last week controversially awarded to Saudi Arabia. Fifa has not addressed the alcohol issue publicly, but senior sources have told the Guardian there is no question of beer being sold at matches.

Darts | The four-time semi-finalist James Wade crashed out of the World Darts Championship at the first hurdle as he was thrashed 3-0 by Jermaine Wattimena.

The front pages

The Guardian’s splash is “Moscow blast kills Russian chemical weapons chief” while the Financial Times goes for the passive voice: “Kremlin’s chemical weapons general killed in Moscow blast by Kyiv agents”. “Brave and spirited to the end” – the Metro on Sara Sharif after her killers were sentenced. The Telegraph has “Musk ready to bankroll Farage”. The Mirror leads with “We have been betrayed”, which is about “Waspi fury at Labour”, about which the Express says “Labour have betrayed our OAPs time after time”. To the Mail it’s the “Betrayal that proves Labour cynically said ANYTHING to get elected” while the Times’ angle is “Labour MPs rebel over new blow to pensioners”. The i reports on “Victory for the victims of second Post Office IT scandal, after 30 years of lies”.

Today in Focus

The prince and the ‘spy’

Prince Andrew is in trouble again, this time for meeting a businessman who has denied spying for China. Dan Sabbagh and David Pegg report

Cartoon of the day | Martin Rowson

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

What’s better than Barcelona? Paul Hartley recommends Tarragona, just an hour away from the tourist-heavy Spanish city. Hartley and other Guardian readers share their favourite travel discoveries in a delightful tour of visit-worthy places off the beaten path. Pastry in Europe’s surfing capital? Sounds delicious. Or a cycle to the canal-side Belgian town of Damme, not far from Bruges. Or a trip to hilly Lausanne, the San Francisco of Switzerland, with classy cafes and great outsider art. While it may not be possible to visit all of these spots in 2025, it’s a reminder of the wonder and joy in experiencing a place for the first time and wanting to share it with others.

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Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.