MOSCOW, March 13. /TASS/. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has prevented a series of terrorist attacks that were to be carried out by mailing booby-trapped perfume kits to servicemen in eight regions, detaining a Ukrainian recruit who was to send the parcels in the Sverdlovsk Region, the FSB press office reported.
"The FSB has thwarted a number of sabotage and terrorist acts planned by the Ukrainian special services against Russian servicemen participating in the special military operation, as well as civil servants providing assistance to military units," the press office said, adding that a Russian citizen recruited by the Ukrainian security services to send parcels was detained.
"During the inspection at the Chelyabinsk airport, FSB officers found and disarmed five packages containing improvised explosive devices disguised as perfume gift sets. According to experts, the explosives were active and should have detonated when the recipient opened the package," the press office emphasized.
According to the FSB, the Russian citizen, born in 2003, retrieved parcels from caches in Chelyabinsk for a cash reward and sent them by Russian mail to servicemen and civil authorities living in Moscow, Voronezh, as well as in the Krasnodar and Saratov Regions. "After completing the task, the Ukrainian special services stopped communication with him without paying the reward," the press office added. During the inspection of the hiding place in Chelyabinsk, another hiding place was found, from which four similar explosive devices were taken, intended for servicemen living in the Tver, Rostov, Nizhny Novgorod and Kaluga Regions.
The FSB said that in 2024, the detainee, on the orders of his handler, carried out surveillance and information gathering on Russian servicemen living in Engels in the Saratov Region, and employees of defense industry enterprises in Yekaterinburg. The FSB’s investigative department initiated a number of criminal cases and organized the search for the persons who had manufactured the explosive devices and placed them in the hiding places.