A Ukrainian agent had scammed a Crimean resident into targeting the agency’s HQ in a terrorist attack, officials have said
A Ukrainian terrorist plot involving an unwitting suicide bomber was thwarted in the Russian port city of Sevastopol, the Federal Security Service (FSB) has said.
The agency said a Ukrainian intelligence handler persuaded a local resident to carry a portable speaker to the FSB’s regional headquarters, telling him it would be used for surveillance as part of an internal investigation. Officials said the device actually concealed an improvised explosive meant to detonate at the site. Security guards intercepted the device and found the explosives before they could be triggered.
Officials released a record of what they said were instructions given by the Ukrainian handler, who claimed the unwitting accomplice would be offered a job at the FSB, should he prove capable in the fake counter-espionage operation. The job was expected to take a couple of minutes and supposedly necessitated that the suspect scan mobile phones in the HQ security checkpoint to detect traitors.
Russian investigators claim they have identified the Ukrainian agent who orchestrated the plot. The same person was allegedly behind a similar attempt to bomb the security checkpoint of the FSB HQ in Simferopol, which was reported by the agency last August. In that case, a 54-year-old woman from Volgograd Region was tricked into delivering a bomb to the Crimean city disguised as a Christian icon.
The FSB named the suspected mastermind as Ivan Krinov, a lieutenant in the Ukrainian military’s Special Operations Forces, currently based in Odessa with his family. The statement said Russia will seek to charge him with terrorism and have him put on an international wanted list.
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February 02, 2026 at 01:13PM
RT