Russia’s FSB says it detained a foreigner who was plotting to kill a Defense Ministry employee
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it has detained a foreigner in the Moscow region on suspicion of plotting to kill a serviceman in one of the Defense Ministry’s units.
According to the FSB, the suspect, born in 1990, was acting on orders from Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and was tasked with shooting the serviceman.
During questioning, the suspect said SBU officers had recruited him in one of the European Union countries, where he had fled “to escape criminal prosecution in his home country,” according to the investigation. In exchange for carrying out the assignment, he was promised help obtaining refugee status in the EU, the FSB added.
In a video released by the FSB, the detainee said he had been wanted in his home country — which he did not name — and had spent the past three years living illegally in Spain. He said a Ukrainian acquaintance he had worked with had suggested he contact the SBU. He said he had reached out to the SBU via Telegram, that agency officers had bought him a ticket to Moscow, and that he had then retrieved a pistol from a cache in a forest strip 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Moscow.
An SBU agent had given him an address and a photograph of the man he was supposed to kill, he said, but he had not found the man there. After that, he said, he had been asked to hide the pistol and fly to Moldova, where he was to be taught how to assemble a homemade bomb.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said the day before that two teenagers had been detained on suspicion of involvement in a car explosion in Moscow’s Konkovo district on June 9. The vehicle belonged to an employee of a scientific and industrial enterprise.
Investigators say a girl acting on instructions from handlers retrieved the explosive device from a cache and passed it to another teenager, who attached both the device and a GPS tracker to the car.
Another car explosion occurred the same day in Balashikha, outside Moscow. A BMW X3 exploded as the driver got in and began to pull away; he was killed at the scene. The victim has not been officially identified, though Telegram channels claim it was Damir Davydov, head of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of Russia’s Defense Ministry.
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