The Security Service of Ukraine says it has detained two Ukrainian citizens hired by the Russian Army’s Main Intelligence Directorate to assassinate Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, and “a Ukrainian well-known activist.”
For each assassination, the Russian handlers promised a reward in the amount of 100 to 150 thousand US dollars, SBU says.
According to the Agency, the group was formed by Russian military intelligence officers. It included a resident of temporarily occupied Luhansk, who fought against Ukraine in Russian military formations of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic. He and a Kyiv resident were detained in Kovel, Volyn Oblast, where they met, according to SBU, to plot a “test assassination” of a Ukrainian soldier.
