MOSCOW, May 3. /TASS/. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has prevented attempted assassinations of Crimean leaders plotted by agents of Ukrainian military intelligence and masterminded by Roman Mashovets, deputy head of the office of the Ukrainian president, the FSB’s Public Relations Center told TASS on Wednesday.

"The Russian FSB has interdicted the activities of a network of operatives of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate, which had been plotting a series of high-profile sabotage and terrorist attacks in the Republic of Crimea," the center said. According to the FSB, attacks were planned specifically against Sergey Aksyonov, head of Crimea; Vladimir Konstantinov, chairman of the Crimean State Council; and Yanina Pavlenko, mayor of Yalta. Additionally, the attacks were intended to target transport infrastructure facilities on the Crimean Peninsula.

"It has been established that the immediate organizer of the terror attacks and coordinator of preparations for the assassinations of high-ranking officials was Roman Mashovets, a close contact of Kirill Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate (MID) under the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, and an officer in the MID active reserve, who has served as deputy head of the office of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky since 2020," the FSB said.

As a result of the measures taken, members of a group of deep-cover agents of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate who were active in Crimea have been detained: Russian and Ukrainian nationals Viktor Podvalny (born in 1967), Alexander Litvinenko (born in 1986), Sergey Krivoshein (born in 1988), Konstantin Yevmenenko (born in 1971), Igor Zorin (born in 1972), and Sergey Voynarovsky (born in 1984), who had been recruited by Mashovets. They had been planning to carry out terrorist attacks, conducting surveillance of officials using special technical devices, and obtaining firearms. A Ukrainian and Bulgarian national, D. Petranov (born in 1979), was also detained; he was engaged in delivering destructive agents to Russia, the FSB press service said.

"Searches of the detainees’ homes uncovered five ready-to-use homemade explosive devices with cumulative and concentrated charges, UK-made plastic explosive substances with a total mass of about six kilos, military-grade electric detonators, radio-controlled mechanisms for the activation of explosive devices, trackers for surveillance as well as communication devices for clandestine interaction with handlers from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate," the FSB said. It has been established that the explosive substances confiscated from the detainees were identical to those used in a terrorist attack on a railroad in Crimea on February 23, 2023. As well, a clandestine supply channel for bringing UK-made explosive substances and the components for explosive devices from Bulgaria via Turkey and Georgia to Russia disguised as parts for electric stoves was shut down.