FBI foils Russian plot to kill dissident in Washington
Federal authorities said Tuesday that the FBI thwarted a Russian plot to kill a prominent dissident believed to be living in Washington, D.C. The intelligence services of the Russian Federation have been plotting targeted killings in the U.S. and in European nations supporting Ukraine since at least 2024, according to the announcement.
Five people assumed to be living abroad were charged in the plot, according to an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court. The indictment said a network of the Russian intelligence services has paid and tried to pay individuals in the United States and in other countries to surveil and then kill Russian dissidents.
The associates recruited by the network also have been solicited to carry out acts of terrorism against civilian and military infrastructure in European countries perceived to be aligned with Ukraine, the indictment said.
James C. Barnacle Jr., head of New York’s FBI office, said the agency disrupted the plans “through relentless work” as members of the intelligence services and their affiliates “conspired to intimidate, threaten, or murder people on U.S. soil and around the world.”
Darren B. Cox, head of the Washington, D.C., office of the FBI, cited “extraordinary work by multiple FBI field offices, components, and partner agencies” and said they “moved quickly to disrupt the plot.”
According to the release, the network previously focused on Russian dissidents and defectors but, following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, had targeted nations perceived to be allies of Ukraine. Members of the network recently have tried to recruit multiple people in the United States, the release said.
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said in the release that the people charged in the foiled plot “conspired to cause destruction and mayhem around the world, including right here in the United States.”
Three high-ranking members of the Russian intelligence services were among those charged. They were identified as Yuri Khrameev, a former colonel in the Russian intelligence services; his son, Kirill Khrameev, an officer in the Federal Security Service of Russia; and Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a Cuban national and an influential member of the Cuban diaspora living in Russia.
The indictment said the Federal Security Service is Russia’s principal security agency and the successor agency to the former Soviet Union’s Committee for State Security, known as the KGB.
Yuri Khrameev and two others charged in the indictment, Yaidel Delgado Suarez and Angel Eduardo Castro, both living in Russia, recruited a Venezuelan citizen living in Brooklyn to surveil and murder the dissident, the indictment said.
The Brooklyn resident was sent to two locations associated with the targeted victim and was given “explicit instructions on how to conduct surveillance” while being promised $1,000 and $1,500 to carry out the work, the indictment said.
After conducting the surveillance and providing multiple photographs and videos of locations associated with the intended victim, the U.S. resident turned down the $40,000 that was offered to “eliminate” or “disappear” the target through murder, authorities said.
When the offer was rejected, the member of the intelligence services who made it offered multiple other people within the United States substantial amounts of money to finish the job, the indictment said.
