FSB says it foiled car bombing plot targeting leadership of Russia’s internet regulator

Russia’s Federal Security Service said it had uncovered a plot to assassinate the leadership of Roskomnadzor, the country’s federal censorship agency. The FSB’s public relations center said agents foiled a planned car bombing targeting the agency’s senior officials on April 18, 2026, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

Seven people were detained in connection with the alleged plot, with arrests made in Moscow, Ufa, Novosibirsk, and Yaroslavl. The FSB said all seven had been recruited through Telegram.

The group’s leader, the FSB said, was a Moscow resident born in 2004. He “offered armed resistance using a firearm” when agents moved to detain him and was killed.

Searches of the detainees turned up what the FSB described as “neo-Nazi paraphernalia and symbols of Ukrainian paramilitary formations, as well as instructions for joining a Ukrainian terrorist organization designated a terrorist organization by Russian authorities.”

Criminal cases have been opened against the detainees on charges of illegal trafficking of weapons and explosive devices, the FSB said, adding that investigators are considering whether to charge them with preparing a terrorist attack.

The FSB also said Ukrainian intelligence services had intensified activities “aimed at disrupting measures being carried out in the Russian Federation to ensure the security of the information space, including the blocking of the Telegram messenger.”

“At present, the leadership and employees of Roskomnadzor, as well as members of their families, are receiving threats of physical violence, armed attacks and extremist actions are being carried out against them, and terrorist attacks are being prepared,” the agency said.

In January 2026, a senior Roskomnadzor official, Alexei Belyayev, whose subordinates were responsible for carrying out internet blocks, was killed at the entrance of the federal censorship agency’s main building on Kitaygorodsky Proyezd in Moscow. A 16-year-old identified only as Artyom A. was detained on suspicion of the murder. For nearly 10 days, no information about the killing or the investigation was publicly available. State and pro-Kremlin media were advised not to report on the murder of the Roskomnadzor employee, according to Meduza’s sources.

In recent months, Russia has tightened restrictions on mobile internet, nearly completely blocked Telegram, and launched an active campaign against VPN services. Roskomnadzor enforces all of these restrictions.