MOSCOW, November 7. /TASS/. Gennady Chastyakov, an aide to Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, who was killed when a grenade he received as part of a birthday gift exploded, knew that these were combat grenades, Ukrainian Interior Ministry Spokeswoman Maryana Reva said on Tuesday.

"The man who gave these gifts confessed that he had warned the man that these were combat grenades. It looks like the man (Chastyakov - TASS) did not believe that," she told Radio Liberty (listed as a foreign agent media outlet in Russia).

Ukraine’s NV media outlet cited sources in law enforcement agencies as saying that Chastyakov’s colleague confessed that he had placed a bottle of whiskey and six grenades in a gift box. So, Chastyakov might have taken his warning as a joke.

On November 6, Zaluzhny said that his aide had been killed in an explosion involving an unidentified device hidden in a birthday gift. Chastyakov’s wife told the Ukrainian media outlet Strana that the present had been handed over by Zaluzhny’s senior aide Timchenko. Meanwhile, Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said later that Chastyakov had brought the gift home to show his son a "new Western" munition. According to Klimenko, the search of the gift-giver’s office yielded two more such grenades. The five remaining unexploded grenades have been seized from Chastyakov’s home for expert examination.