Russia says it thwarted Ukrainian assassination plot against senior Putin-linked Orthodox priest

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Friday it had foiled an attempt by Ukraine's military intelligence service to assasinate Tikhon Shevkunov, a senior priest in Russia's Orthodox Church.

There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv to the allegation.

Shevkunov, who has been described in Russian media reports for years as "Putin's confessor" - something he has neither confirmed nor denied - has maintained a public acquaintance with President Vladimir Putin since the late 1990s and the Kremlin has said the two men know each other well.

In 2023, he was appointed metropolitan of Crimea, becoming one of the top Russian Orthodox Church officials on the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The FSB said in a statement it had detained one Russian 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.

It said that the two men, who it said had been recruited by Ukraine using the Telegram messenger service, had been plotting the assassination attempt since mid 2024 and had planned to kill Shevkunov in Moscow.

Ukraine has taken responsibility for a number of assassinations in Russia since the start of the war in 2022, including pro-Moscow Ukrainian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in April 2023, and the head of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, Igor Kirillov, in December 2024.

Reuters