Russia’s top security service said Thursday that it had arrested several suspects accused of involvement in an alleged Ukrainian plot to assassinate senior military officers Killing of a high-ranking Russian general last week.
The Federal Security Service, a top KGB successor known by its Russian acronym FSB, said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that it had arrested four Russians accused of preparing to kill senior Defense Ministry officials .
The FSB said the suspected organizers of the attacks planned to kill one of the high-ranking officials with a remote-controlled car bomb. It added that another senior military official was to be assassinated by an explosive device hidden in an envelope. The agency did not name the military officers targeted in the alleged conspiracy.
The FSB released a video showing the arrest and interrogation of the unnamed suspects.
The statement follows the death of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was killed on December 17 while walking to his office by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter parked in front of his home. Kirillov’s assistant also died in the brazen attack, which Ukraine claimed brought the conflict back to the streets of the Russian capital.
The FSB has arrested a suspecta citizen of the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan, and claimed he was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
Kirillov, 54, was the head of Russia’s radiation, biological and chemical protection forces. These special forces are tasked with protecting the military from the enemy’s use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and ensuring operations in a contaminated environment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Kirillov’s assassination a “big mistake” by Russian security agencies and noted that they should learn from it and improve their efficiency.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday that this was the case Russia launched massive missile and drone fire They targeted Kiev’s energy infrastructure, attacking a thermal power plant and causing many to seek shelter in subway shelters on Christmas morning.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it carried out a “mass attack” on what it said were critical energy facilities in Ukraine that support the work of the military-industrial complex in Kiev, Reuters reported.
The Russian attack left half a million people in the Kharkiv region without heat, with temperatures just above zero degrees Celsius, and caused power outages in the capital Kiev and elsewhere, Reuters added.
According to Reuters, the attacks wounded at least six people in Kharkiv and killed one in the Dnipropetrovsk region, governors there said.
In a statement on
Putin deliberately chose Christmas for an attack. “What could be more inhumane?” said Zelensky. “They keep fighting for it.” a power outage in Ukraine.”
US President Biden on Wednesday condemned Russia’s attack, saying the purpose of this heinous attack was to cut off the Ukrainian people’s access to heat and electricity in the winter and jeopardize the security of their power grid.
