An Uzbek citizen accused of acting on behalf of Ukraine has been charged by Russian authorities with this week's assassination of a senior Russian general and his assistant in a bombing claimed by Ukraine's security services, state media said Thursday.
Akhmadzhon Kurbonov was ordered detained by a Moscow court until at least Feb. 17 in Tuesday's bombing that killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of Russia's Radiation, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, the Tass state news agency reported.
Kurbonov was charged with the killings, carrying out a terrorist act and illegally manufacturing explosives, the Russian news agency said.
Kirillov was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine's security service leveled criminal charges against him. His assistant, Ilya Polikarpov, also was killed.
Kurbonov — previously referred to by news agencies as Akhmad Kurbanov — was detained by Russian security services on Wednesday.
Shortly after he was detained, Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, which did not identify him, said he was born in 1995 and was recruited by Ukraine's security service. The Associated Press could not confirm the conditions under which the suspect spoke to the FSB.
The suspect said he had been promised $100,000 and resettlement in a European Union country in exchange for killing Kirillov, according to the FSB.
The agency said that acting on instructions from Ukraine, the suspect picked up a homemade bomb in Moscow, placed it on an e-scooter and parked it at the entrance to Kirillov's apartment building.