The SBU CI detained a Russian agent in hot pursuit of an attempted assassination of an official of the Melitopol City Council in Zaporizhzhya Region. This was reported by the SBU.
The killer waited for the official in the entrance of a residential building and then struck him several times on the head with a hammer. Despite numerous injuries, the victim survived.
For conspiracy purposes, the offender disguised himself as a utility worker who was carrying out maintenance work in the apartment building where the official lived.
Subsequently, the offender was preparing to escape to the temporarily occupied part of Zaporizhzhya Region through the EU. He planned to use one of the "schemes for fugitives" to cross the state border. The hired killer was detained on his escape attempt.
The man lived in the temporarily occupied Melitopol and came to the attention of Russians when he was serving a sentence in a Russian prison for premeditated murder before the full-scale invasion. In June 2024, he was finally recruited and sent to a special training course at an FSB training centre in the temporarily occupied part of the Region. There, under the guidance of Russian special service instructors, the agent was engaged in firearms training, knife fighting techniques and practised conspiracy measures.
To carry out the Russia's task, the killer arrived in Zaporizhzhya posing as an IDP. After arriving in the city, he began to track the addresses of his victim's work and residence, as well as the main routes of his movement. To "cover his tracks", the agent constantly changed the addresses of rented apartments, and communicated with his Russian handler through fictitious nicknames in an anonymous messenger chat.
In the event of the murder of the Ukrainian official, Russians promised their accomplice to hand over a house in Melitopol that belonged to local residents who were forced to leave it because of the occupation.
SBU investigators have now served the detainee a notice of suspicion under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:
- Part 2 of Article 111 (high treason committed under martial law);
- Art. 15, para. 2, Art. 115 (attempted premeditated murder committed on a contract basis).
The offender is in custody. He faces life imprisonment with confiscation of property.