DOJ Uncovers Kremlin Plot To Kill Ukraine Supporters in America by Recruiting Operatives, Assassins in the U.S.

Federal prosecutors in New York have charged members of a “brazen, aggressive and far-reaching” Kremlin plot to kill people supportive of the Ukrainian cause by using Americans to spy on targets and “carry out targeted killings,” causing “mayhem around the world.”Officials say the operation was run by the Russian Intelligence Service for more than two years, abandoning the Cold War-era restraint in which Soviet and American spies refrain from carrying out killings on each other’s soil.The plotters, led by a former colonel in Russian intelligence and his son, attempted to recruit people living in America to surveil and kill a Russian dissident living in the Washington D.C. area this past summer, according to a grand jury indictment handed up Tuesday. The suspects, who coordinated their efforts through encrypted messaging apps and appear to have remained in Europe during the plot, are all still at large.The indictment comes two days after a wide-ranging investigation by the German broadcaster DW unveiled the involvement of several of the people indicted in the Southern District. DW pointed out that some of those involved in their schemes may have been “disposable agents” unaware they were helping Russia.“The RIS Network is one arm of the Russian Federation’s apparatus used to carry out external attacks, including murder, around the world,” the indictment reads. “The Russian Federation’s external operations have focused on Russian dissidents and defectors and, particularly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, on nations perceived as Ukrainian allies.”Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, 35, is an “influential member of the Cuban diaspora” according to prosecutors, who say he had booked travel arrangements for saboteurs who struck facilities in Lithuania, including a facility making mobile radio equipment for the Ukrainian military. Mr. Durruthy teaches salsa and bachata from his studio in Petrozavodsk, Russia.Mr. Durruthy was allegedly in close contact with Yuri Khrameev — aka “Colonel Yuri” — the former colonel in Russian intelligence. The indictment alleges that Mr. Khrameev’s son Kirill was also involved in the plot and is a member of Russia’s Federal Security Service — the successor agency to the Cold War-era KGB.Plotter Angel Eduardo Castro allegedly contacted an unnamed Venezuelan citizen living in Brooklyn this past July. Mr. Castro is also a Venezuelan and is living in Russia.Speaking in coded language via encrypted messaging platforms and referring to a murder-for-hire plot as a “construction” project, Mr. Castro and the Cuban-born Yaidel Delgado Suarez — aka “Viking” — looked to hire the Venezuelan living in the US for surveillance work and eventually a contract killing.Mr. Suarez called the job “gravely serious work” and left it to Mr. Castro to be his sole point of contact with the Venezuelan national.“Dont’ have him call me,” the Venezuelan national said to Mr. Castro of Mr. Suarez, according to the indictment. “That’s crazy. Can we talk through you so it gets disguised? Otherwise he tells me directly so they can connect the communications. You know they track everything here.”Locations on where to surveil the Russian’s target were identified by the elder Mr. Khrameev and sent via encrypted message, the indictment says.The Venezuelan national in the US took surveillance photos and video but refused to carry out the hit, according to the indictment. The Russians promised him $1,000 or $1,500 for the surveillance but were willing to pay $40,000 for the assassination.According to Mr. Suarez, he had a hit team in Mexico prepared to carry out the assassination, but they were not available because they had been delayed.The plot comes one year after the Khrameevs approached a US citizen in the Baltics and asked him to carry out an assassination on a “bad guy” who was “telling the media and the common people that the Russians are the aggressors” in Ukraine, thereby “distorting history.”The younger Mr. Khrameev allegedly met the would-be surveillance man at the Russian-Estonian border to speak face to face, then put the American citizen in touch with his father via encrypted messages.The American would be paid $200 for surveillance and could receive $25,000 if he was willing to carry out the murder, the indictment reads. Suggested methods of death were “throwing a bottle of gasoline” or “sticking a knife” into the target. The American declined to carry out the killing – not on moral grounds, the indictment says, but because the chosen location for the assassination was too open and he feared getting caught.The plotters then suggested the American carry out sabotage efforts, including setting fire to a warehouse full of food or targeting an electrical substation.The indictments come after a summer of sabotage in Europe that many intelligence officials there have traced back to Russia. They include an attempted drone attack on Germany’s Leipzig/Halle airport and a fire at a Polish electronics facility that makes drones for Ukraine.Last week, Romanian authorities arrested a Russian citizen who surveilled NATO military sites and Ukrainian aircraft in Romania with the goal of sabotaging the sites. It’s unclear if this plot is also linked to the Khrameev’s operation.

DOJ Uncovers Kremlin Plot To Kill Ukraine Supporters in America by Recruiting Operatives, Assassins in the U.S.

DOJ Uncovers Kremlin Plot To Kill Ukraine Supporters in America by Recruiting Operatives, Assassins in the U.S.

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