Russian intelligence agencies plotted a series of surveillance and assassination plots targeting dissidents in the United States and Europe, US authorities said.
The allegations, detailed in a new federal indictment, are the latest warning from Western law enforcement officials pointing to an effort by Russia to conduct sabotage and assassination operations often utilizing people -- sometimes unwittingly -- not trained as professional spies.
Among the five people charged in the indictment unveiled late on September 15: a father and son linked to Russia's Federal Security Service: Kirill Khrameev, identified as a colonel in the agency, known as the FSB; his father Yuri, identified as a former FSB officer.
Three others -- two Cubans and one Venezuelan -- are believed to live in Russia and remain at large, the US Justice Department said in a statement late on September 15.
According to the indictment, as recently as this summer, the Venezuelan person, who had been living in the United States, was hired to surveil a prominent Russian dissident who was living in Washington, D.C.
The person was sent to two addresses and given “explicit instructions on how to conduct surveillance,” authorities said. In exchange, the person was promised $1,000 and $1,500 to carry out the surveillance.
The person then allegedly sent photographs to one of the FSB officers, who then later offered $40,000 to the person to “eliminate” or “disappear” the dissident.
After the person declined the offer, the FSB officers allegedly sought out others in the United States to carry out the murder plot.
In another incident detailed in the indictment, an American man living in Lithuania traveled to Estonia, to the border with Russia on June 25, 2025. There, he met Khrameev who allegedly offered to pay the man an unspecified amount to return to Vilnius and take photographs of an address where a “bad guy” who was “telling lies about Russia" lived.
The person was paid $200 for the surveillance. The person was then put in touch with Khrameev’s father, Yuri, who allegedly offered him $25,000 to kill the person because he was "spreading dirt about my country" and "telling the media and the common people that the Russians are the aggressors."
After the person declined, Yuri Khrameev allegedly suggested he could set fire to a warehouse or electrical substation for an unspecified amount of money.
Khrameev allegedly wrote to the man, saying he interested in targeting pro-Ukrainian countries and was offering "serious money for serious work," according to the indictment.
The group was also accused of involvement in an attempt to set fire to buses in the Czech Republic and to a sabotage plot against a Lithuanian facility that supplies radio equipment to Ukraine.
The FSB had no immediate comment on the indictment.
