{"id":1916,"date":"2026-05-07T17:32:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=1916"},"modified":"2026-05-07T17:32:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:32:50","slug":"russia-is-ramping-up-its-attempts-to-kill-opponents-in-europe-intelligence-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=1916","title":{"rendered":"Russia is ramping up its attempts to kill opponents in Europe, intelligence officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

By EMMA BURROWS and JOHN LEICESTER<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Vladimir Osechkin wants to take his children to school or go to the supermarket, he calls the police.<\/p>

Read more Agency will move forward with plans to propose weakening some Biden-era PFAS limits, official says<\/a><\/p>\n

The Russian activist has lived under protection since 2022 because French officials believe Russia is trying to kill him.<\/p>\n

In April 2025, a crew of Russian men staked out Osechkin\u2019s home and the surrounding area in southwestern France for several hours, taking videos and photos in suspected groundwork for an assassination, according to court documents seen by The Associated Press that are not public. Several years earlier, Osechkin said, a red dot \u2014 which he thought was a laser sight for a gun \u2014 appeared on his wall.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Europe, Lithuanian officials disrupted a plot last year to kill a Lithuanian supporter of Ukraine and another against a Russian activist. Officials in Germany have similarly broken up two plots: one to target the head of a German weapons company supplying Ukraine, the other against a Ukrainian military official. Polish authorities arrested a man in 2024 in what they said was a plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And that same year, a Russian helicopter pilot who defected was killed in Spain \u2014 with Russian operatives the prime suspects.<\/p>\n

While Russian officials have long been accused of silencing the country\u2019s enemies abroad, three Western intelligence officials from different countries told AP that a campaign of targeted killings has ramped up since President Vladimir Putin\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The officials said Russia\u2019s security services are now more brazen in their choice of targets, going after Russian activists and foreign supporters of Ukraine, in addition to the usual suspects like military defectors. All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis campaign is not by accident or chance,\u201d said one of them, a senior European intelligence official. \u201cThere is political authorization.\u201d<\/p>

\n<\/div>\n

The intelligence officials, a former senior British counterterrorism official and prosecutors in Lithuania see the campaign as connected to Russia\u2019s broader efforts to undermine European countries that support Ukraine, including 191 acts of sabotage, arson and other disruption linked to Russia by Western officials that the AP has mapped across Europe since the beginning of the war.<\/p>\n

Many accused in that campaign are people who were recruited as cheap proxies for Russian intelligence operatives. Moscow is now using that model to target its perceived enemies abroad, according to the French court documents, officials and information from the Lithuanian prosecutor.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told AP he didn\u2019t see \u201cany need\u201d to comment. Russian officials have previously denied that Moscow is behind attempts to kill its opponents abroad.<\/p>\n

The AP spoke to three of the people targeted: Osechkin; Lithuanian activist Valdas Bartkevi\u010dius; and Ruslan Gabbasov, who advocates for independence for the Russian region of Bashkortostan.<\/p>

\n<\/div>\n
  • \n
    \"Sergei<\/figure>\n
    FILE \u2013 Sergei Skripal, left, is seen on a screen speaking to his lawyer from behind bars in Moscow on Aug. 9, 2006. (AP Photo\/Misha Japaridze, File)\n<\/div><\/div><\/li>
  • \n
    \"Russian<\/figure>\n
    FILE \u2013 Russian defector Maksim Kuzminov attends a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sept. 5, 2023. (AP Photo\/Vladyslav Musiienko, File)\n<\/div><\/div><\/li>
  • \n
    \"Investigations<\/figure>\n
    FILE \u2013 In this March 12, 2018, photo, personnel in protective gear work on a van in Winterslow, England, as investigations continue into the nerve-agent poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, in Salisbury, England. (AP Photo\/Frank Augstein, File)\n<\/div><\/div><\/li>
  • \n
    \"Vladimir<\/figure>\n
    FILE \u2013 Vladimir Osechkin is interviewed by The Associated Press in Paris on Sept. 20, 2022. (AP Photo\/Francois Mori, File)\n<\/div><\/div><\/li><\/div><\/div><\/ul>
    FILE \u2013 Sergei Skripal, left, is seen on a screen speaking to his lawyer from behind bars in Moscow on Aug. 9, 2006. (AP Photo\/Misha Japaridze, File)\n<\/div>Expand<\/span><\/div><\/div>\n

    A trip to the seaside<\/h4>\n

    Three of the four men detained by French police in the plot to kill Osechkin traveled to the beach resort of Biarritz, where Osechkin lives, in April 2025, court documents show. They surveilled his house \u201cwith a view to assassinating him and subsequently intimidating all political opponents of the Russian authorities living in France,\u201d the documents said.<\/p>\n

    All four were born in Russia\u2019s Dagestan region. One has multiple criminal convictions while another said he had been arrested by Russia\u2019s domestic security service and fled the country to avoid being sent to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

    Osechkin founded a rights group for prisoners years ago and runs a project that exposes abuses in Russia\u2019s prison system, but he said the threats against him escalated after he began investigating alleged Russian abuses in Ukraine and helping Russian military defectors flee.<\/p>\n

    He moved to France in 2015 and was put under police protection seven years later when French officials received information that his life was in danger.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for them, I probably would have been killed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n