MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it had foiled several plots by Ukrainian intelligence services to kill high-ranking Russian officials and their families in Moscow using bombs disguised as external batteries or folders. of documents.
The Ukrainian intelligence service SBU killed Lieutenant General Kirillov, head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, on December 17 in Moscow, outside his apartment building, by detonating a bomb attached to an electric scooter.
An SBU source confirmed to Reuters that the Ukrainian intelligence agency had been behind the attack. Russia said the killing was a terrorist attack carried out in Kyiv and vowed revenge.
“The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation has prevented a series of assassination attempts on high-ranking military personnel of the Ministry of Defense,” the FSB reported.
“Four Russian citizens involved in the preparation of these attacks have been detained.”
The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, claimed that Russian citizens had been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
One of the men recovered a bomb disguised as a power bank in Moscow that was to be attached with magnets to the car of one of the top Defense Ministry officials, the FSB said.
Another Russian was assigned the task of reconnoitring senior Russian defense officials. One plot involved the delivery of a bomb disguised as a document folder, the FSB said.