The pro-Kremlin newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets claims to have identified Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu as the target of a foiled assassination plot that law enforcement authorities first released details about late last week.
Russia’s FSB security service said in a statement on Friday that a “high-ranking official” was targeted while visiting the grave of a family member at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. It did not reveal the official’s identity.
At the time, the FSB claimed its agents had discovered a hidden camera disguised as a flower vase near the grave, stating that it was used to monitor the movements of the high-ranking official.
Moskovsky Komsomolets, without specifying its sources, reported late Monday that the alleged target of the foiled assassination plot was Shoigu, who used to serve as Russia’s Defense Minister before being replaced by Kremlin economist Andrei Belousov in May 2024.
Senior State Duma lawmaker Andrei Kolesnik claimed the alleged plot against the Security Council chief was part of a wider campaign to destabilize Russia.
“Sergei Shoigu is an influential figure. The goal here is more about pressuring our country, our people, to try to sow panic,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
Law enforcement officials have not yet commented on the Moskovsky Komsomolets report.
The FSB claimed that Ukrainian intelligence services recruited a husband and wife from Russia, an illegal migrant from Central Asia and a Kyiv resident named Jaloliddin Shamsov to assassinate Shoigu. The Russian couple and the Central Asia native were arrested, the agency said, but it was not clear what charges they faced.
State media circulated an FSB video showing the arrested Russian woman confessing to having been promised drugs by a handler, identified as a man named Ruslan, in exchange for placing the hidden camera vase on the grave at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery.
It was not immediately clear whether the woman, whose name and age were not disclosed, made the confession under duress.
The FSB said it issued an arrest warrant for Shamsov on charges of illegal arms trafficking and murder, which was reportedly connected to a 2021 killing in the republic of Bashkortostan.
Multiple Russian officials and pro-Kremlin figures have been killed both inside the country and occupied areas of Ukraine since the full-scale invasion in 2022.
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