MOSCOW, August 25. /TASS/. Officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) have detained a woman who attempted to deliver a powerful bomb concealed inside an Orthodox icon into the agency’s office in Crimea, the FSB said in a statement.

"A terrorist attack on FSB officers, orchestrated by the Ukrainian Security Service, has been thwarted in Crimea. A 54-year-old female Russian national, a resident of the Volgograd Region, was detained. Ukrainian intelligence agencies tricked her via the Telegram messenger into taking part in terrorist activities under the pretext of recovering the money she had lost in a phone fraud scheme," the statement reads.

As directed by her Ukrainian handler, the woman arrived in Crimea, received an Orthodox icon from a courier, which had an improvised explosive device installed inside, and brought it to the checkpoint of the FSB office in Crimea and Sevastopol. On examination, a high-explosive device containing one kilogram of TNT equivalent was discovered and defused.

The bomb contained foreign-made plastic explosives and a mechanism triggered by a code. The FSB pointed out that "the detonation of the parcel would have killed not only FSB officers but also the attacker, who was instructed by the handler to send the code to the bomb’s mechanism."

It has been established that in May 2025, an SBU officer called the woman, posing as an FSB investigator. He told her that a Ukrainian national included in the list of terrorists had taken a loan using the letter of authorization provided by the woman, and transferred the money to the Ukrainian army. In order to avoid responsibility, the woman applied for several loans worth over three million rubles (about $37,200), which she transferred to the criminals.

The FSB branch in Crimea and Sevastopol has launched a criminal investigation based on Russian Criminal Code Articles 30.3 and 205.1 ("Attempt to Carry Out an Act of Terrorism") and Article 222.1.1 ("Illegal trafficking in explosives and explosive devices").