MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/. Two Russian nationals detained for orchestrating planned assassinations of senior employees of the Russian Defense Ministry were recruited in Ukraine, where they went in search of a "better life," they admitted during interrogation, a video of which was published by the FSB.

According to one of them, he and his wife relocated to Ukraine in November 2020 "seeking a better life." "Our dream did not come true. I lost my job and was unemployed for 1.5 years. Migration issues arose," he said. He started receiving fines and faced threats of deportation. Special services’ employees then took the man to a secret apartment in Kiev. "There, employees called Alexey Nikolayevich and Ruslan showed an explosive device, which I had to plant under a car of the Defense Ministry," the detainee said.

The second detainee also stated that he had moved to Ukraine, where he was recruited by Ukrainian special forces. "After that, this year, I was sent to Russia in order to spy on high-ranking officials of the Russian Defense Ministry, as well as their family members, their whereabouts, and cars. I was handing all the collected data to my handler to then organize terrorist acts against the monitored officials and their families," he said.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has intercepted a series of assassination attempts targeting high-ranking officials of the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow and their families. Ukrainian special services were behind the organization of the attacks.