MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia's Federal Security Service said on Saturday it had foiled a Ukrainian plot to kill a high-ranking Russian officer and a pro-Russian war blogger with a bomb hidden in a portable speaker.
The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said a Russian national had made contact with an officer from the Ukrainian military intelligence agency GUR through the messaging app Telegram.
The Russian Federal Security Service said that on instructions from a Ukrainian intelligence officer, the Russian citizen recovered a bomb from a hideout in Moscow. The FSB said the bomb, equivalent to 1.5 kilograms of TNT and packed with ball bearings, was hidden in a portable music speaker.
The Federal Security Service did not name the officer or blogger who was the target of the plot. The Ukrainian military intelligence agency, GUR, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Ukraine says Russia's war against it poses an existential threat to the Ukrainian state and has made clear that it considers targeted killings – aimed at weakening morale and punishing those Kiev considers guilty of war crimes – legitimate.
Russia has said they amount to illegal “acts of terrorism” and accuses Ukraine of assassinating civilians such as Daria Duzhina, the daughter of a nationalist ideologue, in 2022.
On December 17, the Ukrainian intelligence service killed Lieutenant General Kirillov, head of Russia's nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, in Moscow outside his apartment building by detonating a bomb attached to an electric motorcycle. Kyiv accused him of promoting the use of banned chemical weapons, which Moscow denies.
Donald Trump's designated envoy for Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg (NYSE:), told Fox News on December 18 that these killings “weren't really smart” and were “a little far-fetched.”
Russia said it would avenge Kirillov's killing.
