Russian authorities have said they’ve stopped a plot to assassinate a high-ranking Russian military officer and to kill a military blogger who has been covering the ongoing Russian military operations in Ukraine.
In a press statement on Dec. 28, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said they thwarted the assassination plot after uncovering communications on the Telegram instant messaging platform between a Russian national and a member of Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency. Russian authorities have since arrested the Russian national.
The FSB said the Ukrainian intelligence officer had instructed his Russian contact to retrieve an explosive device containing the equivalent of 3.3 pounds of the explosive TNT. The device was disguised as a portable music speaker.
The FSB said the Russian national they arrested had begun to surveil the homes of his targets and had worked to identify opportunities to detonate a bomb remotely.
Russian officials did not name the Russian military officer and military blogger being targeted in the suspected assassination plot.
Russian officials also did not name the Russian national involved in the plot, but said he has been cooperating with investigating authorities since his arrest.
Russian Authorities on Heightened Alert
Russian national security authorities have been on heightened alert in recent days after the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov was killed on Dec. 17.Authorities have arrested and charged Akhmadzhon Kurbonov, a citizen of Uzbekistan, in connection with Kirillov’s assassination. The FSB said Ukrainian intelligence officers had recruited Kurbonov to carry out the attack, offering to pay him $100,000 and to resettle him in a European Union country in exchange for the killing.
On Dec. 26, the FSB announced it had foiled multiple other Ukrainian-led assassination attempts targeting high-ranking Russian military officials and defense industry officials in recent days.
The Russian security service said it detained seven Russian nationals, including three minors, in an apparent plot to plant a bomb under the car of an executive whose company produced equipment for the Russian military.
FSB officials said they arrested other individuals planning to attach a bomb under the car of a high-ranking Russian Defense Ministry official.
Two more Russian citizens were arrested in an alleged plot to deliver a bomb hidden inside a document folder to another Russian military official.
Several other Russian officials and pro-Russian figures have been killed in bomb blasts throughout the Russia–Ukraine war, which began in February 2022.
Illya Kyva, a former Ukrainian politician who relocated to Russia in 2022, was gunned down in a park near Moscow in December of last year. Kyva had called for Ukraine to capitulate to the Russian invasion and Ukrainian authorities charged and convicted him in absentia of treason. Following Kyva’s death, Ukrainian GUR spokesman Andriy Yusov said, “The same fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine and accomplices of Putin’s regime.”
Sergei Yevsyukov, the former head of a prison that housed Ukrainian prisoners of war, was killed in a car bombing earlier this month in the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Donetsk. Yevsyukov had run the Olenivka Prison, which was struck by a missile in July 2022, killing and wounding dozens of prisoners. Russia had blamed the missile strike on Ukrainian forces, while the Ukrainian side claimed Russia struck its own prison facility to falsely blame Ukraine and to cover up evidence of abuse at the facility.
