Ukraine war: Russia’s FSB arrests Crimea ‘sabotage’ suspects after attacks
- Russia’s FSB said the group had planned to assassinate officials including the Moscow-installed head of Crimea
- Russian territory and Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, have been hit in recent days by a series of attacks
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Wednesday it had arrested seven people connected with Ukrainian intelligence and accused them of planning “a series of high-profile sabotage and terrorist acts” in Russian-annexed Crimea.
In a statement, the FSB said the group had planned attacks against Russian-installed officials including local governor Sergei Aksyonov. It said it had seized explosives identical to those used to attack railways in the peninsula in February.
In a statement, Aksyonov said the same group was behind both alleged incidents. He said, without providing evidence, that there was no doubt that the Ukrainian government was behind them.
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and used it as one of the launch pads for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The arrests came as attacks on infrastructure objects in the south of Russia have become more frequent in recent days.