by Philip Giraldi, The Unz Review:
Last week a top Russian general named Igor Kirillov was assassinated outside his Moscow home.
Lt. Gen. Kirillov had served since 2017 as head of Russia’s Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Defense Troops, obviously a position of great importance, and together with an aide, he was killed by an explosive device, with the Ukrainian government immediately taking full credit for his death. Leading British newspapers, closely linked to that country’s intelligence services, quickly declared the assassination completely justified and celebrated the powerful blow that had been dealt to their Russian adversary.
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Although there was no acknowledgement of any involvement by the Americans or their NATO allies, it seems very unlikely that such a dangerous, even reckless operation would have been undertaken by the Ukrainians without the foreknowledge and approval of their powerful allies and mentors. Since the war with Russia broke out in February 2022, America alone has contributed some $175 billion to the Ukraine war effort and the Europeans an additional $135 billion. Large portions of these colossal sums have completely funded the entire operating cost of Ukraine’s state and its armed forces, while also contributing the continuing flow of equipment, munitions, and reconnaissance information without which Ukrainian combat operations would almost immediately collapse.
During wartime, targeting enemy commanders controlling troops in the field or coordinating operations at a frontline headquarters is obviously legitimate, and indeed quite a number of Russian generals have already died during the Ukraine war. But Kirillov held no such combat command and he was killed just outside his home in Moscow, hundreds of miles away from the battlefield, so most independent military analysts characterized the assassination as blatantly illegal, amounting to a terrorist attack or a war crime.
Consider, for example, our early 1990s Gulf War against Iraq. If an assassin hired by Saddam Hussein had struck down Colin Powell, Chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff, outside his Virginia home, we would have been rightfully outraged at that act of illegal terrorism.
During all the decades of our long Cold War against the Soviet Union, nothing remotely similar to Kirillov’s assassination had ever happened on either side, and it is difficult to imagine that any of our presidents would have permitted such a dangerous, potentially destabilizing act by our own intelligence services or those of our allies. This represents a further sign that all existing standards of international law are increasingly being set aside or ignored, probably with very grave consequences for ourselves and for the entire world.
Over the years, the Israelis have demonstrated a notorious tendency to assassinate their real or perceived enemies all around the world, with those illegal killings numbering in the thousands, while America and its powerful Israel Lobby have successfully insulated that country from any serious penalties or international condemnation. So as a consequence, this once abhorrent and prohibited practice has increasingly become normalized, and the Ukrainians have now apparently decided to take advantage of that unfortunate precedent.
