Ukraine’s SBU says it thwarted FSB plot to assassinate Russian opposition figure

Filed 52m ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

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Covert Affair

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Designed by Edward Klauck. · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Ukraine's SBU says it worked with military intelligence agency HUR to thwart a Russian FSB plot to assassinate a Russian opposition figure during a visit to Kyiv around Ukraine's Independence Day on August 24. The SBU did not name the intended target or release further details of the alleged plot.

Ukrainian media identified the target as Stepan Kaplunov, deputy commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, which said on September 1 that Kaplunov had gone missing outside his home days earlier with his whereabouts still unknown. The group's own credibility on such claims took a hit in December 2025, when it announced commander Denis Kapustin's death, only for it to emerge that Kapustin was alive and the death reports were a Ukrainian intelligence operation.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

When your own side has already run a fake-death psy-op on this exact organization, a vague we-foiled-a-plot statement deserves a raised eyebrow rather than a headline. That's not a dig at the seriousness of assassination plots, just a note that spy agencies telling us about their own successes are grading their own homework.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Covert Affair · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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