Ukraine 'liquidates' hitman working for Russia's GRU, thwarts plot to assassinate high-profile figures, SBU says
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Ukraine has "liquidated" an alleged hitman working for Russia's military intelligence agency (GRU), arrested more than ten co-conspirators, and foiled a plot to assassinate several high-profile Ukrainian figures, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on March 24.
According to the SBU, the "agent-combat group" was planning to assassinate people including Serhii Sternenko, an advisor to Ukraine's Defense Minister and a prominent activist, as well as Ilya Bogdanov, a Russian national who has been fighting for Ukraine since 2014.
"Thanks to the SBU. I'm fine. Unlike the hitman. Russia should burn," Sternenko wrote on Telegram on March 24. Sternenko was previously targeted by an assassin in May of last year.
The alleged hitman was killed whilst resisting arrest, the SBU said.
It claimed the alleged perpetrators tracked the addresses and movements of military personnel and public figures, and then sent the data to the group's leader, a forensic expert from the city of Poltava who had been recruited by Russia's GRU. He compiled intelligence and reported to the Russian special services.
Russia then passed data on potential victims to the hitman. According to the case file, the killer is a native of the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast, where he underwent combat training at a Russian military base and was later smuggled into territory controlled by Ukraine.
He was tasked with manufacturing improvised explosive devices and placing them under cars or near victims' homes. If the explosion failed, the hitman was instructed by his Russian handler to shoot the victims at close range, the SBU said.
During searches of the suspects' premises, authorities confiscated firearms, ammunition, voice recorders, computer equipment, and surveillance cameras that held evidence of their activities for Russian intelligence agencies.
Ruslan Kravchenko, the Prosecutor General, said the network consisted of 10 people and gathered information about the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kramatorsk and Pokrovsk districts of Donetsk Oblast, as well as in Kharkiv Oblast. Additionally, they recorded the aftermath of Russian attacks and sent the collected data to their Russian contacts through messaging apps.
In the front-line city of Kramatorsk, the agents were tasked with locating a restaurant frequented by Ukrainian servicemen to carry out a terrorist attack there. An explosive device for this purpose was dropped from a drone at a designated spot, Kravchenko added.
Military counterintelligence, the Main Investigation Directorate, special forces from the SBU's "A" Special Operations Center, and officers from the Security Service's Main Directorate in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblast took part in the operation, which was coordinated by First Deputy Head of the SBU Oleksandr Poklad.
The suspects are charged with treason, collaboration, unauthorized dissemination of information about the Armed Forces of Ukraine, preparation for a terrorist act, and illegal possession of weapons.
The court imposed a pretrial detention measure on the suspects — detention without the right to bail. They face life imprisonment with confiscation of property.
"Assistance to an aggressor state is inexcusable. Traitors will be held accountable under the law," Kravchenko said.
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