Russia's main security agency said Thursday that it has arrested several suspects accused of involvement in an alleged plot in Ukraine to kill high-ranking officers. the assassination of a high-ranking Russian general last week.
The Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, known by its Russian acronym FSB, said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that it had arrested four Russians accused of plotting to assassinate senior Defense Ministry officials.
The FSB said that the suspected organizers of the attacks planned to kill one of the senior officers with a remote-controlled car bomb. It added that another high-ranking military officer was to be killed using an explosive device hidden in an envelope. The department did not name the servicemen who were victims of the alleged conspiracy.
The FSB released a video recording of the detention and interrogation of the unnamed suspects.
The announcement follows the death of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was killed on December 17 by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter parked outside his apartment building as he walked to his office. Kirillov's aide was also killed in a brazen attack, which Ukraine claimed responsibility for and once again brought the conflict to the streets of the Russian capital.
FSB detained the suspecta citizen of the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan, and claimed that he claimed to have been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
54-year-old Kirilov was the commander of the radiation, biological and chemical defense forces of Russia. These special forces are tasked with protecting the military against the use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons by the enemy and ensuring operations in a contaminated environment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the killing of Kirillov a “big mistake” by the Russian security services, noting that they should learn from it and improve their effectiveness.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials announced this on Wednesday Russia launched a massive missile and drone strike striking Kiev's energy infrastructure, striking a thermal power plant and forcing many to hide in subway shelters on Christmas morning.
Russia's Ministry of Defense said it had struck a “massive strike” on Ukraine's critically important energy facilities that support the military-industrial complex of Kiev, Reuters reports.
As a result of the Russian attack, half a million people in the Kharkiv region were left without heat in temperatures just above zero Celsius, and the lights were cut off in the capital, Kiev, and elsewhere, Reuters added.
As a result of the strikes in Kharkiv, at least six people were injured and one person was killed in the Dnipropetrovs'k region, the local governors said, according to Reuters.
In a statement on X, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that more than 70 missiles, including ballistic ones, and more than 100 attack drones were used to strike Ukraine's electricity sources.
Putin deliberately chose Christmas to attack. What could be more inhuman?” – said Zelensky. “They continue to fight for power outage in Ukraine.”
US President Biden on Wednesday condemned Russia's attack, saying that “the goal of this outrageous attack was to cut off the Ukrainian people's access to heat and electricity in the winter and to jeopardize the security of its grid.”