President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday ordered the FSB security service and law enforcement agencies to step up the protection of government officials amid a wave of deadly attacks that Moscow has blamed on Ukrainian intelligence services.
“Together with other law enforcement agencies, the FSB needs to increase the protection level for Defense Ministry officials, the defense industry, state and municipal authorities, as well as education and social workers,” Putin said at an FSB meeting.
“This fully applies to public opinion leaders and volunteers who are constantly threatened by the Kyiv regime,” he added.
Putin, who gave his comments on the fourth anniversary of the war, raised alarm about a “significant rise” in missile and drone attacks on critical infrastructure, public and administrative buildings, as well as residential areas.
He accused Ukraine of resorting to acts of sabotage and assassinations of government and military officials after “failing to inflict a strategic defeat against Russia on the battlefield.”
The Kremlin leader said 2025 saw an increase in terrorist acts, most of which he said were “undoubtedly” carried out by Ukrainian intelligence services and “their foreign handlers.”
Putin pointed to an overnight explosion that killed a police officer at a central Moscow railway station, suggesting that the attacker, who died at the scene, may have been an unwitting accomplice recruited online.
He also claimed that U.S.-brokered peace talks were threatened by an alleged plot to attack two natural gas pipelines that bring Russian gas to Turkey and further to southern Europe under the Black Sea.
“They’re doing everything they can to pull off some kind of provocation and break everything that’s been... achieved in negotiations,” he said.
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