Ukraine would not need to target prominent Russian state television propagandists because they are “meaningless,” an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s presidential office has said.
On Saturday, Russia’s security service (FSB) said it had prevented the assassination of two prominent Russian journalists by Ukrainian operatives. The “detainees” were planning on killing Margarita Simonyan, the head of the Kremlin-backed RT network, and state television host and politician Ksenia Sobchak, for a total reward of 3 million rubles, or roughly US$33,000, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Russia has previously accused Ukrainian intelligence services of orchestrating the deaths of Russian journalist and pro-Putin voice Darya Dugina in August 2022 and of Kremlin-affiliated Russian military blogger, Maxim Fomin. An anti-Putin group claimed responsibility for Dugina’s death, and Russian authorities arrested a 26-year-old St. Petersburg resident over Fomin’s death.
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Seven people have been detained by Russian authorities in relation to the alleged incident, state news agency TASS reported, citing Moscow’s Basmanny District Court. They will be held until September 14, Moscow’s courts of general jurisdiction said in a statement.
Four of those detained are minors born between 2005 and 2006, with another arrestee also under 18, independent Russian outlet Mediazona reported. The other two charged with “hooliganism” are 18 and 22 years old, according to the outlet.
But Kyiv appeared to deny any involvement in the reported incident. “We definitely do not need them,” Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, told Ukrainian state broadcaster, Suspilne, according to a translation by Ukrainska Pravda.
“They have no impact on anything,” Podolyak said. “They do not play an important role in what is happening today, neither within the framework of the war as a whole, nor within the framework of Russia’s loss of positions in the global sense.”
“They are meaningless,” he continued.
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Newsweek reached out to the Ukrainian Security Service and President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s office for comment via email on Sunday.
Russia’s FSB said its operatives had seized a Kalashnikov assault rifle, plus 90 rounds of ammunition for the weapon, during the arrests of the seven alleged Ukrainian operatives. In a statement published by Russian state media outlets, the security service said they had also found knives, knuckle-dusters, handcuffs, and items bearing Nazi insignias during their operations.
Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has justified its actions by claiming the country needed to be purged of “Nazis.”
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This narrative has been rejected by Ukraine, and by the international community.
The FSB reports coame as Ukraine continues its counteroffensive, which Russia said began in early June. Kyiv’s forces carried out the prolonged assaults “on at least three sectors” of the front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, making “limited gains,” the Washington D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War said on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, Ukraine’s General Staff said there had been 39 combat clashes with Russian forces over the past day. Russia’s Defense Ministry said several drones and two unmanned semi-submersible vehicles had targeted the city of Sevastopol, in the annexed Crimean peninsula. All of the unmanned vessels and vehicles were intercepted, Moscow said.
