Russia’s Federal Security Service, FSB, said on Saturday that it thwarted a plot by Ukraine to kill a high-ranking Russian officer and a pro-Russian war blogger with a bomb hidden in a portable music speaker.
The FSB stated that a Russian citizen had established contact with an officer from Ukraine’s military intelligence agency via the Telegram messaging application.
According to the FSB, acting on the instructions of the Ukrainian intelligence officer, the Russian citizen retrieved a bomb from a hiding place in Moscow.
The FSB reiterated that the bomb, which was packed with ball bearings, was concealed inside a portable music speaker.
However, the FSB did not mention the names of the officer or the blogger who were the intended targets of the plot.
Ukraine has stated that Russia’s war against it poses an existential threat to the Ukrainian state and has made it clear that it regards targeted killings aimed at weakening morale and punishing those Kyiv deems guilty of war crimes as legitimate.
Russia, however, has condemned these actions as illegal acts of terrorism, accusing Ukraine of assassinating civilians, such as Darya Dugina, the daughter of a nationalist ideologue, in 2022.
