FSB Accuses Kyiv of Planning Attack on British Ambassador to Moscow
Russia’s FSB published a video of the interrogation of a Russian citizen who worked as a security officer at the British Embassy in Moscow. In it, he appears to confess that he had passed intelligence to a Ukrainian handler intended to be used in an attack on the ambassador.
In brief: Russia’s FSB published a video of the interrogation of a Russian citizen who worked as a security officer at the British Embassy in Moscow. In it, he appears to confess that he had passed intelligence to a Ukrainian handler intended to be used in an attack on the ambassador.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reported Thursday that it had detained an unnamed 45-year-old Russian national who worked as a security officer at the British Embassy in Moscow.
The FSB alleges that he had been recruited by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to gather information in preparation for an attack on the British ambassador, Nigel Casey, and other diplomats.
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Footage of his arrest and interrogation was published by the FSB’s Public Relations Center (PSC). In it, he claimed a pro-Ukrainian blogger contacted him.
“I was a security officer at the British Embassy in Moscow. I directly conducted security activities at the residence of the British Ambassador in Moscow. In January of this year, I was contacted by a pro-Ukrainian blogger Dmitry Karpenko,” the person said.
He goes on to say he was tasked with noting the arrival and departure times of the staff, which cars the diplomats drove, which restaurants and cities they visited, and the manning of checkpoints and events at the residence.
The FSB supported the accusations by releasing screenshots of text messages between the Russian national and Karpenko, in which the suspect supposedly provided a list of occupants of the ambassador’s residence and their phone numbers, as well as the head of the mission’s schedule, which included arrival and departure times and details of engagements with other diplomats, including the ambassadors of Israel and Sweden.
The FSB claimed that Karpenko is active in the “Look for your Own” project, a digital initiative launched by Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs shortly after the start of the 2022 full-scale invasion, to help Russian families identify Russian soldiers who have been killed or captured during the war.
The organizers say the project was intended to counter Moscow’s state censorship of casualty reporting to provide closure to families in Russia.
The FSB put a different spin on the platform’s motives, arguing that it is regularly used to publish video recordings of conversations with prisoners who have defected to Ukraine and joined terrorist organizations in an attempt to persuade others to defect.
It further alleges that Karpenko, using the alias “Apostol Dmitry,” was acting on behalf of the SBU, whose plan was to organize a “false flag” attack that would pin responsibility on Russia in order to draw the UK into a direct armed conflict, secure increased arms supplies for Ukraine, and trigger tougher sanctions against Moscow.
It said that a criminal case has been opened against the Russian under Article 275 of the Criminal Code
In its statement, the FSB urged Russians to avoid any contact with Karpenko and other pro-Ukrainian bloggers, as “they are intent on drawing compatriots into committing high treason and other particularly grave crimes punishable by up to life imprisonment.”
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