Russia has claimed that a Ukrainian plot to kill one of Putin’s highest-ranking officials by using booby-trapped flowers at his parents’ grave has been foiled.
The country’s Federal Security Service (FSB) also added that a husband and wife assassin has been arrested in connection with the attempt.
While the target was not named, there is speculation that the reports referred to the dictator’s notorious former defence minister Sergei Shoigu, 70, now Russia’s top security official.
He was in charge of the Russian army when it originally invaded Ukraine and committed horrific rape, torture and illegal execution ‘war crimes’ aside from repeated bombing of civilians.
The FSB claimed the elaborate scheme was to assassinate the official as he visited his parents’ graves in Moscow on the anniversaries of their deaths.
The agency detained suspects who allegedly planted a vase of flowers at the grave on orders from Kyiv.
Explosives were to be planted in the vase later, which was also fitted with a spy camera, according to the FSB.
The aim was to remotely detonate a bomb when the top official was seen at the graveside.
Sergei Shoigu seen in Egypt earlier this month. It has been rumoured that he was the target of an assassination plot foiled by Russia
President Putin and Sergei Shoigu pictured on holiday in Tuva, Russia, in August 2017. The pair were close friends and often took trips together
The FSB has claimed that booby-trapped flowers at the grave of the former defence minister were meant to kill him
Russian authorities have released dramatic arrests photographs of the alleged culprits
The secret service detained a husband and wife from Russia, a ‘migrant’ and Jaloliddin Shamsov, allegedly a ‘Kyiv resident’.
Communication devices seized from the suspects contained messenger correspondence with a Ukrainian special services officer via WhatsApp and Signal, confirming preparations for the assassination attempt, according to the FSB.
The migrant allegedly said: ‘I was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services to commit a terrorist attack at a cemetery in Moscow.’
The husband and wife – convicted drug addicts – gave confused video testimony in an FSB interrogation, saying their role had been to place the vase at the graveside under instructions from a minder called Ruslan, allegedly a Ukrainian agent.
The husband said: ‘He told us to place the vase in the far left corner of the grave. I started shining the light and saw some wires there. I thought, well, maybe it’s a camera. I assumed it was an explosive device.’
A senior official who appears to match the description involving Troyekurovskoye Cemetery is Shoigu, who now heads Putin’s powerful security council.
His mother and father are buried in the cemetery. While relations may have cooled, Shoigu was for years Putin’s vacation buddy on macho trips to Siberia.
The anniversary of his mother’s death in 2011 was two days ago, and that of his father, who died a year earlier, is next month.
The FSB have said they have arrested a husband and wife pair accused of carrying out the plot
Russia released images of the pair confessing that they were given instructions to kill the official
The explosive was to be fitted with a spy camera, according to Russia’s FSB
Shoigu’s parents’ grave where the alleged assassination was meant to take place
Shoigu has served continuously in the Russian government since 1991 – longer than any other senior official, including Putin, 73.
Assassinations have been carried out by both sides during the war.
Russia is currently making almost daily arrests of people accused of working for the Ukrainian secret service, as Russia is engulfed by a wave of paranoia.
It is impossible to glean how many of the cases are genuine.
A Ukrainian SBU source told CNN that the FSB was ‘churning out fake news and statements non-stop. They said: ‘Our position is not to comment on their nonsense.’