Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has said that it foiled an attempt by the Ukrainian military’s intelligence service to assassinate Tikhon Shevkunov, a senior priest in Russia's Orthodox Church, on Friday.
Shevkunov, nicknamed “Putin’s confessor” by the country's media, has maintained a public association with the Russian President Vladimir Putin since the late 1990s and the Kremlin has said the two men know each other well.
The attack has been viewed as an attempt to derail the ongoing ceasefire negotiations between Moscow and Washington, as President Putin on Thursday issued warnings against those trying to sabotage the peace deal.
The priest was appointed as metropolitan of Crimea in 2023, one of the top Russian Orthodox Church officials in the peninsula. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Meanwhile, the FSB said in a statement it had arrested one Russian individual and one Ukrainian man in connection with the plot and had confiscated an improvised explosive device. It said the two suspects, whom it did not name, had confessed to assassinating the priest.
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It said that the two men, who it claimed had been recruited by the Ukrainian intelligence agencies using the Telegram messenger service, had been plotting the assassination attempt since summer 2024 and had planned to execute Shevkunov in Moscow.
However, Ukraine has yet to comment on the allegations.
Whereas, Ukraine has claimed responsibility for several assassinations in Russia since the start of the war in 2022, including pro-Moscow Ukrainian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in April and the head of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops, Igor Kirillov, in December 2024.
Furthermore, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Washington to sign the much-anticipated mineral deal today.
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