US charges 5 suspects linked to alleged Russian assassination, sabotage network targeting Ukraine's allies

U.S. prosecutors have charged five people accused of working for Russian intelligence as part of a network that allegedly plotted assassinations and terrorist acts in countries supporting Ukraine, the Justice Department announced Sept. 15.

The global network has operated since at least 2024 and most recently attempted to recruit multiple people in the U.S. to surveil and kill Russian dissidents, prosecutors claimed.

The defendants allegedly paid or attempted to pay people in the U.S. and elsewhere to conduct surveillance, carry out targeted killings, and attack civilian and military infrastructure in European countries aligned with Ukraine, according to the Justice Department.

Three of the named defendants are alleged to be high-ranking members of the Russian intelligence network. These include Yuri Khrameev, a former Russian intelligence colonel; Kirill Khrameev, a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer and Yuri Khrameev's son; and Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a Cuban national living in Russia.

The other two suspects charged in the indictment are Yaidel Delgado Suarez and Angel Eduardo Castro, U.S.-based recruiters working on behalf of the Russian spy network.

In one case this summer, Suarez and Castro allegedly recruited a U.S.-based individual to surveil a prominent Russian dissident believed to be living in the country. The individual was initially offered between $1,000 and $1,500USD to conduct surveillance and later offered $40,000 to "eliminate" or "disappear" the target, prosecutors said.

The Khrameevs also allegedly attempted to recruit a U.S. citizen in 2025 to kill another individual in Lithuania whom they accused of “telling lies about Russia.”

After the U.S. citizen declined an offer of approximately $25,000 to carry out the killing, Yuri Khrameev allegedly offered what he described as a "simpler job," including setting fire to a warehouse or attacking an electrical substation.

Khrameev allegedly said the aim was to target "all the countries that are helping Ukraine" and offered "serious money for serious work," according to the indictment.

Durruthy is accused of coordinating attacks in Czechia and Lithuania in 2024.

"These defendants allegedly operated as part of a global assassination network that reached into the United States, attempting to recruit U.S. citizens and foreigners to carry out killings at the behest of the Kremlin," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said.

The charges include conspiracy to finance terrorism, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Yuri Khrameev, Suarez, and Castro also face a murder-for-hire conspiracy charge carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years.

All five suspects remain at large.

Russia has intensified hybrid operations against countries supporting Ukraine since the start of the full-scale war in 2022. Suspected Russian agents have been charged with espionage, sabotage, and attempted assassinations in the U.S., Europe, and other Western countries.