Ukraine this Sunday denied involvement in the assassination of the editor-in-chief of Russia Today, one of the media outlets closest to the Kremlin, as the Russian security services (FSB) accused on Saturday.
The FSB tied the Ukrainian special services, which it accused of paying 15,000 for two targets to members of the neo-Nazi group Paragraph-88, to the murder of Margarita Simonyan and TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak.
As a result of the operation to dismantle the plan in Moscow and the Ryazan region of central Russia, at least six people were arrested.
One of the detainees admitted that he received an offer from the Ukrainian special services, according to the Russian prosecutor’s office.
The rebuttal this Sunday came from Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, who assured in an interview with the Ukrainian channel Unity that his government had absolutely nothing to do with the operation.
“Special services have no influence in the context of the war or in the context of Russia’s loss of influence on the world stage,” Podolyak said.
Russia Today, one of the Kremlin’s main political channels, was systematically suspended in Ukraine’s allies during the first weeks of the conflict, namely in Portugal.
His presence has also been banned from social media such as Twitter.
Margarita Simonyan is one of the most famous faces of Moscow’s information war, which goes hand in hand with the offensive in Ukraine.
Ksenia Sobchak is the daughter of the former mayor of St. Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak, a mentor to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, Ksenia Sobchak, who has never hidden her opposition to the February 24, 2020 invasion of Ukraine, runs a very popular YouTube channel in Russia, often critical of the authorities.
The popular influencer has been forced to leave Russia several times since the beginning of the conflict, but has always returned.
Attacks or attempted murders are now commonplace in Russia, as they are mostly directed against activists who support a terrorist attack in Ukraine.
Moscow blames the Ukrainian authorities, but they deny or do not comment on these incidents, and last year the FSB accused Ukraine of preparing an attack on Russian journalist and TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov.