Moscow, Russia (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday made a rare admission of failings by his powerful security agencies over the Ukraine-orchestrated killing of a senior general in Moscow.

Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian military’s chemical weapons unit, was killed by a bomb planted in a scooter in Moscow on Tuesday, the boldest assassination claimed by Kyiv since the start of the conflict.

“Our special services are missing these hits. They missed these hits. It means we need to improve this work. We must not allow such very serious blunders to happen,” Putin said at his end-of-year press conference, addressing a string of attacks inside Russia on high-profile Kremlin backers amid the military offensive on Ukraine.

Ukraine has been linked to previous attacks in Russia, including the August 2022 car bombing of nationalist Darya Dugina and an explosion in a Saint Petersburg cafe in April 2023 that killed high-profile military correspondent Maxim Fomin, known as Vladlen Tatarsky.

Putin was addressing the killing of Kirillov for the first time, more than 48 hours after the blast in a residential part of the Russian capital.

Questions have been asked in Moscow about the security protocols for such a high-ranking and public figure involved in the military offensive on Ukraine.

Kyiv claimed responsibility for the attack, saying explosives were packed into an electric scooter left by the door of a residential building.

When Kirillov and his assistant left the building, it detonated, killing them both.

Russia has detained an Uzbek citizen born in 1995, suspected of carrying out the attack, the Investigative Committee said Wednesday.

It claimed he said he had been “recruited by Ukrainian special forces.”

Putin on Thursday called the attack “terrorism”.

A source in Ukraine’s SBU security services called Kirillov a “legitimate target” and has accused him of being behind the mass use of banned chemical weapons on the frontline in eastern Ukraine.