On Saturday, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that it had disrupted a plan by Ukraine to assassinate a senior Russian officer and a pro-Russian war blogger using a bomb hidden in a portable music speaker. The FSB revealed that a Russian citizen had contacted an officer from Ukraine’s military intelligence through the Telegram app. Following the instructions of this Ukrainian intelligence officer, the Russian citizen retrieved a bomb from a hidden location in Moscow. The FSB confirmed that the bomb was filled with ball bearings and concealed in the music speaker. However, they did not disclose the names of the officer or the blogger who were the intended targets. Ukraine has asserted that Russia’s aggression against it represents a serious threat to its existence and maintains that targeted killings to undermine morale and punish those it holds responsible for war crimes are justified. Conversely, Russia has denounced these actions as illegal terrorism, accusing Ukraine of killing civilians, including Darya Dugina, the daughter of a nationalist ideologue, in 2022.
