Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it had foiled several plans to assassinate high-ranking officers and their family members in Moscow, hatched by Ukrainian secret services.
General Igor Kirillov, commander of the Russian nuclear, biological and chemical defense forces, was killed on December 17 in Moscow by the explosion of a booby-trapped scooter outside his building.
A source within the SBU, Ukraine's security services, claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of his agency. Russia denounced an attack committed by Ukraine and promised reprisals.
“The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation has foiled a series of assassination attempts on high-ranking military personnel of the Defense Ministry,” the FSB said.
“Four Russian citizens involved in preparing these attacks have been arrested,” he added.
The FSB specified that these suspects had been recruited by Ukrainian services.
One of these men had recovered in Moscow a bomb camouflaged as an electric battery which was to be attached to the car of a Russian Defense Ministry official, according to the FSB.
Another man had been responsible for monitoring various Russian defense officials. One of the assassination plans involved delivering a bomb resembling a briefcase, the FSB said.
(Reuters editorial, French version Bertrand Boucey, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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