The Russian security services (FSB) claimed on Monday to have foiled an assassination attempt targeting a famous oligarch, prepared according to them by a nationalist group piloted by the Ukrainian secret services.
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“The Russian Federal Security Service foiled an attack organized by Ukrainian special services against Konstantin Malofeïev, chairman of the board of directors of the Tsargrad group,” the FSB said in a statement.
The FSB claimed that this alleged assassination plan had been prepared by Denis Kapustin, presented as the founder of a group of “saboteurs” who claimed on social networks an incursion last week in a Russian region bordering the Ukraine.
According to the FSB, Mr. Kapustin, a Russian far-right activist born in 1984, “resides on Ukrainian territory and acts under the control of the SBU”, the Ukrainian special services.
An investigation for “attack”, “involvement in terrorist activities” and “trafficking in explosives” was opened against him by the FSB.
AFP was unable to independently verify these claims.
Konstantin Malofeïev, the alleged target, is a billionaire targeted since 2014 by European and American sanctions imposed on Russia for the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
He is the founder of the Tsargrad group, which notably includes a nationalist and conservative television channel.
According to the FSB press release, the attack was to be committed using an improvised explosive device placed in Mr. Malofeïev’s car.
Last August, the FSB had already accused the Ukrainian special services of having killed in this way Daria Douguina, daughter of a reputed ideologue close to the Kremlin, who died in the explosion of her car near Moscow.
The FSB also accuses Mr. Kapustin of having organized and participated last Thursday in the Ukrainian “infiltration” in the Briansk region (south-west), bordering Ukraine, which left two dead and a child injured according to Moscow. .
The Ukrainian presidency has denied these allegations, seeing in them a “deliberate provocation” which, according to it, aims to justify the military offensive that Moscow has been carrying out in Ukraine for more than a year.