Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) declares to have actually warded off a Ukrainian plot to assassinate a popular priest with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.
2 church figures have actually been jailed in connection with the supposed plan, which the FSB states was managed by a Ukrainian spy company.
The designated target, 66-year-old Tikhon Shevkunov, is extensively reported in Russian media as Putin’s “confessor.” While the Kremlin has actually validated an enduring associate in between the 2 guys, going back to the late 1990s, the specific nature of their relationship stays uncertain.
The Kremlin has actually highly condemned the supposed assassination plot. There has actually been no instant action from Kyiv concerning the allegations.
” It is clear that the Kyiv routine does not avoid anything,” spokesperson Dmitry Peskov informed press reporters. “In this case, absolutely nothing is spiritual. This is as soon as again validated.”
In 2023, Shevkunov was designated to the senior church rank of urbane of Crimea, the peninsula which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
In a declaration, the FSB stated it had actually apprehended 2 guys it stated had actually been hired by Ukrainian military intelligence on the Telegram messenger service in mid-2024. The FSB stated it took an improvised explosive gadget and 2 phony Ukrainian passports.
Among the guys, Nikita Ivankovich, is a Russian cleric at a church in Moscow. The other, Denis Popovich, a Ukrainian born in the western city of Chernivtsi, worked as Shevkunov’s assistant.
The authorities launched videos of both guys admitting to the plot. They spoke reluctantly and it was unclear under what situations the confessions had actually been acquired.
Popovich stated he had actually been hired to keep an eye on Shevkunov’s motions and threatened with the murder of his family members unless he complied. He stated he was then entrusted with discovering an accomplice in order to “remove” Shevkunov.
He stated the strategy was to plant a bomb in a property structure of the 14th-century Sretensky Abbey in Moscow, where Shevkunov transcended up until 2018.
Ivankovich, in his confession, stated the guys had actually been provided with a home-made bomb to perform the attack. The video revealed detectives recuperating a box and phony passports from a hiding location in a wood.
Ukraine has actually taken obligation for a variety of assassinations in Russia given that the start of the war – most just recently for the killing of Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Soldiers, in December.