The Kremlin orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot against a prominent Russian dissident in Washington this summer, according to the Justice Department, which unsealed charges against five people it alleges were part of a “global assassination network” aimed at causing “destruction and mayhem around the world.”
The five people are still at large, the Justice Department said in the indictment, which was unsealed late Tuesday, describing the wider operation being run by Russian intelligence as “brazen, aggressive, and far-reaching.”
The FBI said it had disrupted the plot, although officials did not detail how.
Since at least 2024, the network is alleged to have paid Americans and foreigners to spy on targets, “carry out targeted killings” and “commit acts of terrorism against civilian and military infrastructure in European countries that are aligned, or perceived to be aligned, with Ukraine,” the Justice Department said.
Asked for a response to the allegations by NBC News, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on a daily briefing call with reporters that “until we have heard or seen any reasonable evidence and arguments based on at least something tangible, we do not consider it necessary to comment on this news.”
Western governments have accused Russia for decades of carrying out attempted and successful killings abroad. Despite substantial evidence, it has always denied the allegations.
The indictment did not name the intended victim in Washington. The Justice Department lists the defendants as Yuri Khrameev, known as “Colonel Yuri,” 63, and his son Kirill Khrameev, 27, both of Russia; Oemis Romagoza Durruthy and Yaidel Delgado Suarez, known as “Viking,” both 35 and Cuban nationals; and Angel Eduardo Castro, 22, of Venezuela.
The indictment describes Durruthy as “an influential member of the Cuban diaspora living in Russia,” where, it says, Suarez and Castro also reside.
All face a charge of conspiracy to finance terrorism. Yuri Khrameev, Suarez and Castro face an additional charge of conspiracy to commit murder for hire.
Yuri Khrameev is alleged to be a former Russian intelligence colonel, while his son is an officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB.
Prosecutors allege the network recruited a Venezuelan citizen living in Brooklyn, New York, this summer, promising him between $1,000 and $1,500 to photograph and record two locations associated with the Washington target.
The man carried out the surveillance but declined an offer from Suarez and Castro of $40,000 to “eliminate” or “disappear” the target himself, prosecutors said. The alleged recruiters asked whether he knew somebody who would.
Suarez also offered substantial sums of money to other people in the U.S. to finish the job, the indictment says.
The indictment quotes messages that prosecutors said show the conspirators referred to murder as “construction.” Surveillance instructions included putting the man’s phone into airplane mode and recording while passing the house.
Suarez is alleged to have said that he also had people in Mexico who could carry out the killing but that they were delayed.
Authorities allege a second plot involving a dissident believed to be living in Lithuania whom the network accused of making derogatory statements about Russia.
In that case, a U.S. citizen was promised $200 to photograph the target’s address last year and then was offered around $25,000 to kill him, prosecutors said. When he refused, Yuri Khrameev offered a “simpler job,” prosecutors said — setting fire to a warehouse or attacking an electricity substation.
The purpose, Khrameev is alleged to have said, was to target “all the countries that are helping Ukraine.”
Durruthy, meanwhile, is accused of coordinating logistics for attacks in Prague in June 2024 and Lithuania that September.
Lithuanian authorities publicly named Durruthy as wanted in January in a case involving attempts to burn military equipment intended for Ukraine, according to the Lithuanian broadcaster LRT.
“These defendants allegedly operated as part of a global assassination network that reached into the United States, attempting to recruit U.S. citizens and foreigners to carry out killings at the behest of the Kremlin,” said John A. Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for national security.
“Actions like these represent a gross violation of our sovereignty and a threat to our national security,” he said.
James C. Barnacle Jr., head of New York’s FBI office, said the agency “disrupted this operation through relentless work and rock-solid partnership.”
