The assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence Forces, in Moscow during the week attracted a lot of media attention. A day earlier Ukraine had charged Kirillov in absentia as being ‘responsible for the mass use of banned chemical weapons’ in Ukraine. Officials in Kyiv were unrepentant, calling him a 'legitimate target' in war. Ukraine claimed responsibility for his death.
The phrase 'legitimate target' seems to be cropping up a lot. The following day, responding to an editorial in the Times, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said its editors were 'legitimate military targets'. Journalists, patently, are not legitimate military targets, but it got me wondering what international law says on the matter.