- Russian FSB thwarted an April 18 assassination plot targeting Roskomnadzor leadership via car bombing.
- Seven suspects were detained across four Russian cities; the 20-year-old group leader was killed after opening fire on FSB officers.
- Ukrainian intelligence allegedly recruited the perpetrators through Telegram messenger chats, targeting supporters of neo-fascist ideology.
- Seized items included a one-kilogram explosive device, a grenade, pistols and Ukrainian paramilitary paraphernalia.
- The plot represents an escalating pattern of Ukrainian-directed sabotage operations against Russian officials involved in information security.
In two separate but thematically connected operations spanning five months, Russian security forces have disrupted sophisticated assassination plots targeting high-ranking military and regulatory officials, revealing a coordinated Ukrainian intelligence campaign that employs poisoned beverages, AI-generated romance scams and conventional explosives to eliminate key figures in Moscow's security apparatus. On November 24, 2025, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced it had intercepted a Ukrainian intelligence operation designed to poison a senior Russian military officer using beer laced with colchicine and tert-butyl bicyclophosphate—a banned British-manufactured nerve agent—delivered through an elaborate online deception involving an artificial intelligence-generated female persona named "Polina." Then, on April 18, 2026, FSB counterterrorism units prevented a second plot: the car bombing of Roskomnadzor leadership, orchestrated by Ukrainian special services who recruited seven young Russian nationals through Telegram messenger chats. The alleged group leader, a 20-year-old Moscow resident born in 2004, was killed after offering armed resistance. Together, these operations paint a troubling picture of escalating hybrid warfare tactics targeting not only military commanders but also civilian regulators responsible for Russia's information space.
The poisoned beer operation: AI deception meets chemical warfare
The November 2025 plot represents a disturbing evolution in assassination methodology. According to FSB investigators, Ukrainian intelligence operatives constructed a fake female identity using artificial intelligence technology to generate convincing profile images and conversation patterns. This digital persona, "Polina," spent months cultivating trust with a high-ranking Russian military officer through dating applications before arranging delivery of a lethal gift: beer contaminated with a cocktail of chemical agents. The FSB identified the poisons as colchicine, a toxic alkaloid used in rare medical treatments but lethal in small doses, and tert-butyl bicyclophosphate, a nerve agent manufactured in the United Kingdom and subject to international chemical weapons controls.
The delivery mechanism demonstrated operational sophistication. Rather than direct contact, Ukrainian handlers employed an unwitting middleman—a Russian citizen recruited through Telegram and paid $5,000 for the delivery—who was arrested by FSB surveillance teams before the poisoned beverage reached its target. The courier admitted receiving payment but claimed ignorance of the lethal contents. Explosives discovered at his residence linked him to prior sabotage missions involving drone-smuggled components, suggesting a pattern of escalating operations.
The Dugina and Kirillov precedents
These assassination attempts did not emerge from a vacuum. The FSB explicitly connected the November 2025 plot to two previous high-profile killings attributed to Ukrainian intelligence operations. In August 2022, Darya Dugina, the daughter of prominent Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, was killed by a car bomb outside Moscow. Ukrainian officials denied involvement, but Russian investigators identified the perpetrator as a Ukrainian woman who fled to Estonia after the attack.
More significantly, in 2024, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of Russia's Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops, was assassinated in Moscow using an explosive device concealed within an electric scooter. The assassination represented a dramatic escalation in targeting senior Russian military officers on home soil. The FSB's November statement characterized these operations as part of a systematic campaign by Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) to eliminate Russian military and political figures through increasingly creative and difficult-to-trace methods.
The Roskomnadzor plot: Targeting information control
The April 2026 plot against Roskomnadzor's leadership marks a significant expansion of target selection. Unlike military commanders, Roskomnadzor is a civilian regulatory agency responsible for overseeing Russia's communications, information technology and mass media sectors. The agency has been central to Russia's domestic internet regulation policies, including blocking messaging platforms and enforcing compliance with information laws.
FSB officials stated that seven suspects were detained across four cities—Moscow, Ufa, Novosibirsk and Yaroslavl—with the 20-year-old group leader killed during a raid after opening fire on security forces. Seized materials included a one-kilogram explosive device, an F-1 fragmentation grenade, a silenced Makarov pistol, two gas pistols, walkie-talkies, neo-Nazi paraphernalia and Ukrainian paramilitary insignia. Authorities also recovered a manual on joining a Ukrainian terrorist organization outlawed in Russia.
The FSB accused Ukrainian intelligence of using Telegram messenger to recruit Russian citizens, including minors, by promoting extremist ideologies and exploiting subcultures encouraging violence, fraud and mass-casualty attacks. The agency highlighted the 2018 Kerch Polytechnic College attack—which killed 20 and injured 67—as an early example of Ukrainian-coordinated youth radicalization, noting that since then, 20 attacks on Russian educational institutions have killed 57 and injured 203, with another 306 armed attacks prevented at the planning stage.
The Telegram connection and youth radicalization
A common thread binding both operations is Ukrainian intelligence's reliance on Telegram messenger for recruitment, coordination and payment. In the poisoned beer plot, the middleman received $5,000 via Telegram transfer. In the Roskomnadzor conspiracy, the group's administrator directly managed the assassination planning through chat channels. The platform's encryption, cross-border accessibility and anonymous account creation make it particularly attractive for intelligence operations targeting Russian citizens.
The FSB warned that Ukrainian handlers are specifically targeting young Russians, including minors, exploiting economic hardship, ideological grievances and online subcultures to recruit operatives for sabotage, arson and assassination missions. The agency reported that administrators of violence-promoting internet chats often also moderate "swatting" communities used for mass false terrorist threat reports, creating an interconnected ecosystem of digital disruption and physical violence.
The new frontier of covert conflict
The convergence of AI-generated deception, chemical weapons and conventional explosives in these operations signals a dangerous maturation of Ukrainian covert capabilities against Russian targets. The poison beer plot demonstrates willingness to employ banned nerve agents in targeted assassinations—tactics traditionally associated with state intelligence services rather than insurgent or resistance operations. The Roskomnadzor plot reveals an expanding target set that now includes civilian regulatory officials alongside military commanders, suggesting a strategy to disrupt governance functions beyond the battlefield.
For Western intelligence services monitoring these developments, the operations raise uncomfortable questions about escalation dynamics, the proliferation of chemical weapons use outside traditional battlefields, and the difficulty of defending against AI-enabled social engineering attacks. As the FSB noted in its November statement, the growing threat of AI-generated personas in cyber-physical hybrid attacks demands heightened counterintelligence against deceptive tactics blending digital manipulation with lethal outcomes—a warning that resonates far beyond Russia's borders.
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