Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has foiled a plot by Ukraine to kill a high-ranking Russian officer and a pro-Russian war blogger using a bomb hidden in a portable music speaker. The FSB says a Ukrainian intelligence officer instructed a Russian citizen to retrieve the bomb from a hiding place in Moscow, which is equivalent to 1 1/2 kg of TNT.
The plot targeted an officer from Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency and the pro-Russian blogger, but their identities have not been released. Ukraine’s GUR agency declined to comment on the incident. Russia has previously accused Ukraine of assassinating civilians, including the daughter of a nationalist ideologue, in 2022.
In a similar incident last month, Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service killed Lieutenant General Kirillov, chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, by detonating a bomb attached to an electric scooter. Moscow has accused Kyiv of using banned chemical weapons, a claim denied by the Russian side.
The US-designated envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has criticized such killings as “not really smart” and going “a little bit too far.” Russia vowed to take revenge for the killing of Kirillov.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-thwarted-ukrainian-plot-kill-officer-blogger-2024-12-28