MOSCOW, July 9. /TASS/. The drone, armed with explosives and intended to eliminate a high-ranking Russian Defense Ministry official, was developed with assistance from foreign specialists. This information emerges from an audio recording of a telephone conversation between a Russian detainee in Krasnodar and his Ukrainian handler.
"We'll work remotely. Our foreign friends helped us develop this drone in some ways," the Ukrainian handler states in the recording. "That's why I enrolled you in a course with some friends - trainers who just arrived specifically for this purpose."
According to the FSB, Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) operatives planned to execute a sabotage and terrorist attack in the Moscow Region, targeting a multi-story residential building where the officer resides. The operation involved deploying an explosive drone with shrapnel as the officer entered the building. A recruited Russian agent rented an apartment in Moscow, installing two video cameras to monitor the officer remotely. The plan was for the agent to travel to Ukraine for further training. However, he was detained in Krasnodar while attempting to retrieve explosives for the drone from a cache.
This thwarted plot was part of an unprecedented wave of sabotage and terrorist plots intercepted by the FSB, many of which were orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence agencies with the assistance of Western handlers.