A group of saboteurs working on orders from Ukrainian intelligence services prepared an assassination attempt on the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Sergei Shoigu, the newspaper „Moskovsky Komsomolets“ reports.
According to the newspaper, the saboteurs prepared the attack when Shoigu was to attend the funeral of a relative at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow.
On November 14, the Federal Security Service of Russia announced that it had foiled a terrorist attack against a senior Russian official. The plan was to detonate a bomb at the grave of his relatives in a Moscow cemetery using a video camera hidden in a vase of flowers. Three accomplices in the plot were detained – two Russian spouses and a migrant from a Central Asian country.
FSB officers seized the vase with the surveillance camera before detaining the individuals planning the terrorist attack.
One of the detainees testified during interrogation that he had placed the vase of flowers on the grave of an unknown man. They were later supposed to plant explosives in the vase.
A video shows a recording of a phone conversation between an organizer and one of the men hired to prepare the attack. "There's no vase? I wonder what else is there, what else is around? Absolutely nothing? Yes, I understand, okay," the unknown person says, then tells them to leave in a confused voice.
"Then leave." "Go home and make sure no one is following you," he says.
The two Russian couples who had previously placed the vase on the grave were then detained by FSB officers.
"We ended up going home and were detained on the way," the detainee said.
The alleged mastermind of the assassination attempt, Jalolidin Shamsov, is currently in Ukraine. He is wanted in Russia for murder and illegal possession of firearms.
Dzhalolidin Shamsov, a participant in the plot to assassinate a senior Russian official at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow, was involved in the murder of Marat Kuptsov, a businessman from Bashkortostan, who was shot in March 2016.
Kuptsov was shot in March 2016. Investigators named his former daughter-in-law Irina Kuptsova and Tajik citizen Sadulo Kasimov as the organizers of the murder, Kommersant recalls.
In May 2019, the court sentenced Kuptsova to 17 years in a general regime penal colony. Three other defendants in the case - Sadulo Kasimov, Nusratulo Shodiev and Sayod Safargaliev - were sentenced to 15, 13 and 8 years respectively.