15 July 2023 , 18:10
551
0
The Russian FSB claimed to have stopped plans to assassinate Vladimir Putin’s TV star ‘goddaughter’ and his most powerful woman propagandist.
Putin’s secret service agency claimed the hits were ordered by Ukraine’s intelligence service which offered £12,700 each to kill Ksenia Sobchak and Margarita Simonyan.
A 22-year-old alleged neo-Nazi Yegor Savalyev was detained in Ryazan, along with five accomplices believed to be involved.
Savalyev was previously reported to be a “victim” of a 2019 FSB ‘provocation’.
Sobchak, 41, knows Putin from her childhood because her late father Anatoly - liberal mayor of St Petersburg - was political mentor to the ex-KGB spy.
Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade
A prominent TV personality Sobchak, who stood against Putin at the 2018 Russian presidential election after privately talking to him, finished fourth.
Mikhail Balashov, 18, claims to have agreed to kill Margarita Simonyan and Ksenia Sobcha (RT/east2west news)
Ksenia Sobchak, 36, a journalist, politician and reality TV show host (CEN/@xenia_sobchak)Putin attended her Orthodox christening, leading to claims he is her godfather.
She now runs an independent media outlet which is often critical of Putin and the war against Ukraine.
Simonyan, 43, is a hardline Putin loyalist who has been nicknamed “Goebbels in a skirt”.
She is editor-in-chief of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT, and state-owned media group Rossiya Segodnya.
Savalyev appeared to give a rehearsed confession, saying: “I am Mikail Balashov, born 27 March 2005
“I live in Moscow.
“I created a Neonazi gang Paragraph 88 and got [my] underage friends involved in it...I was contacted by Ukraine's special services...
Leading Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan, 43, editor-in-chief of RT, with Vladimir Putin (Kremlin/east2west news)“We were offered [to commit] the contract assassination of Margarita Simonyan and Ksenia Sobchak.
“I....conducted reconnaissance of Margarita Simonyan's home in order to get money.
Richard 'shuts up' GMB guest who says Hancock 'deserved' being called 'd***head'
“After that I contacted a curator who was supposed to leave a Kalashnikov automated gun for me and money.
“When I arrived at the place where the weapon was supposed to be, I was caught by the employees of the [Russian] intelligence service.”
The FSB claimed it had stopped the killing of Sobchak and Simonyan, yet this was doubted by independent oberservers.
"This is more likely an FSB provocation," said one.
“Members of the Paragraph-88 neo-Nazi group, acting on instructions from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), planned to kill them.”
The FSB claimed its officers “seized a Kalashnikov assault rifle, cartridges, edged weapons, Nazi symbols, literature, as well as communications equipment and computers with information about the preparation of the assassination attempt.”
Vladimir Putin with his 'goddaughter' Ksenia Sobchak, 41, a prominent female opposition politician and influencer (Kremlin/east2west news)Simonyan said: “The FSB, together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Investigative Committee, detained a group that, by order of Ukraine, was preparing my murder.
“[They] followed me, knew all my addresses.”
She urged to send them to her fisherman father “for re-education - he will make real men out of them”.
Caution News - run by Sobchak - reported that the detained man had spent four years in jail for an “extremist” offence.
Savalyev was appearing in a pro-trial custody hearing in court along with other alleged members of his group.