MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/. The Ukrainian security services’ assassination attempt on Editor-in-Chief of the RT television news network Margarita Simonyan and journalist Ksenia Sobchak again demonstrates the Kiev regime’s terrorist nature, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Saturday.

"The recent developments once again show the terrorist nature of [Ukrainian President] Vladimir Zelensky’s regime that is responsible for a string of terrorist attacks," the diplomat said.

According to Zakharova, Russia is "unlikely to expect" a reaction from international organizations.

"Pathological hypocrisy has long been a political tradition of Western liberalism and its unconditioned reflex," she said.

The senior Russian diplomat emphasized that it is another attempted terrorist attack on Russian civilians, "organized by the Kiev regime, which is carefully tutored by Western handlers."

"Now the law enforcement agencies are establishing all the details, but it is already obvious that the reason for the failed assassination attempt was the Russian journalists’ professional activities," the diplomat said.

Zakharova said that Simonyan regularly receives threats, and it is not the first foiled attempt to kill her plotted by the Ukrainian security services.

Zakharova listed several terrorist attacks already committed by Ukraine. In particular, on August 20, 2022, the car of journalist Darya Dugina was blown up in the Moscow Region and she died in the attack. On April 2, 2023, war reporter Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maxim Fomin) was killed in an explosion in St. Petersburg. On May 6, the car of writer Zakhar Prilepin was blown up in the village of Pionersky, the Nizhny Novgorod Region. His bodyguard was killed and Prilepin was wounded. According to the investigation, the Ukrainian security services and their agents were the masterminds behind all these terrorist attacks.

Foiled attack

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) told TASS earlier in the day that on July 14, its officers detained members of the Neo-Nazi Paragraph-88 group in Moscow and the Ryazan Region who were keeping track of their targets - Simonyan and Sobchak - at their places of work and residence. During investigative measures, the suspects confirmed their plotting of the assassination on an assignment from the Ukrainian Security Service for a reward of 1.5 million rubles for each murder. FSB operatives seized a Kalashnikov assault rifle, 90 rounds for it, knives, knuckle-dusters, rubber clubs, handcuffs, chevrons with Nazi insignia, Nazi literature, and also communications means and computers with information confirming their criminal intent.