MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it had foiled several plans by Ukrainian intelligence services to kill senior Russian officers and their families in Moscow using bombs disguised as power banks or document folders.
The Ukrainian secret service SBU killed Lieutenant General Kirillov, head of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, in front of his home in Moscow on December 17, by detonating a bomb attached to an electric scooter.
An SBU source confirmed to Reuters that Ukrainian intelligence was behind the attack. Russia described the murder as a terrorist attack by Kiev and vowed revenge.
“The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation prevented a number of assassination attempts on senior military personnel of the Ministry of Defense,” the FSB said.
“Four Russian citizens involved in the preparation of these attacks were arrested.”
The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said the Russian citizens were recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
The FSB said one of the men seized a bomb disguised as a power bank in Moscow and was supposed to be attached with magnets to the car of a top Defense Ministry official.
Another Russian was tasked with educating senior Russian defense officials. The FSB said one attack involved the delivery of a bomb disguised as a document folder.
