US accuses Russia of trying to kill Ukrainian allies overseas

The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has accused Russia of attempting to assassinate Ukrainian allies residing in the United States and Europe. On Tuesday, the DoJ charged five individuals allegedly linked to Russia's intelligence services (RIS) with conspiring to finance terrorism, which could result in a maximum 20-year prison sentence.

Among the accused are two Russian father-son duo, Yuri Khrameev, 63, and Kirill Khrameev, 27, both of whom are high-ranking members of the RIS, and Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a Cuban national with ties to the Cuban diaspora living in Russia. The other two defendants, Yaidel Delgado Suarez and Angel Eduardo Castro, are accused of recruiting US residents to surveil and murder a prominent Russian dissident.

The FBI's James Barnacle stated that the group's goal was to "intimidate, threaten, or murder people on US soil and around the world." The DoJ described an incident where the RIS network managed to recruit someone in the US to surveil and eventually kill a Russian dissident in the US. Suarez allegedly sent the recruit to two locations with explicit instructions on how to conduct surveillance, offering between $1,000 and $1,500 for the task.

If found guilty, Suarez and Castro face a maximum 10-year prison sentence for participating in a conspiracy to commit murder for hire. This is not the first time authorities have thwarted such threats. Last month, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reported that authorities had detained a Kremlin-linked individual plotting to murder an American-Ukrainian citizen in Warsaw.

In 2024, German authorities reportedly received a warning from US intelligence about a Russian plot to kill Armin Papperger, the head of Germany’s largest arms company Rheinmetall.