The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has accused Russia of plotting to murder Ukrainian allies in the US and Europe.
In a statement on Tuesday, the DoJ charged five men allegedly connected to the Russian Intelligence Services (RIS). The men are accused of paying, or trying to pay, people in the US and overseas to target those “aligned, or perceived to be aligned, with Ukraine”.
“It is our job to stop America’s adversaries from unleashing violence and terror on American soil,” Attorney General Todd Blanche. All those accused remain at large.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday Moscow will not comment until it hears or sees “any credible evidence” or “tangible facts”.
It is not clear if the five accused are in the United States, or in a different location.
Washington has charged all five men with participating in a conspiracy to finance terrorism, which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence.
Three of the defendants are “high-ranking members of the RIS network”, the DoJ said.
Among them are Russian father and son Yuri Khrameev, 63, and Kirill Khrameev, 27. Khrameev senior was a colonel in the Russian intelligence services and his son is an officer in the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB).
The third high-ranking suspect is Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a 35-year-old Cuban national who the US describe as “an influential member of the Cuban diaspora living in Russia who has coordinated attacks for the RIS network”.
Yaidel Delgado Suarez, 35, and Angel Eduardo Castro, 22, are the other two defendants.
The pair are accused of recruiting or attempting to recruit US-based individuals to “surveil and attempt to murder a prominent US-based Russian dissident”.
The FBI’s James Barnacle said the group “conspired to intimidate, threaten, or murder people on US soil and around the world”.
One of the incidents is as recent as this summer. The DoJ described how the RIS network was able to recruit someone in the US to surveil and eventually murder a Russian dissident in the US.
Suarez allegedly sent the recruit to two locations linked to the victim with “explicit instructions on how to conduct surveillance”. In exchange, the recruit was offered between $1,000 (£743) and $1,500.
Suarez and Castro are said to have offered an additional $40,000 if the US resident could “eliminate” the dissident.
The DoJ said the RIS recruit did not go through with it, which led Suarez to try and recruit “multiple other individuals within the United States”. He allegedly offered “substantial sums of money to carry out the targeting of US based victims”.
The release by the DoJ goes on to list other instances in which the accused allegedly tried to recruit others to kill those who were a perceived threat to Russia.
It said that in 2025, Khrameev junior allegedly recruited a US citizen to surveil and murder someone in Lithuania who was “telling lies about Russia”. The release quotes Khrameev as saying the purpose was to target “all the countries that are helping Ukraine”.
His father, Khrameev senior, is said to have offered the recruit $25,000 to kill the individual in Lithuania for “spreading dirt about my country” and “distorting history”.
Khrameev senior, Suarez and Castro are the only ones also charged with “participating in a conspiracy to commit murder for hire”. If found guilty, this charge carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
It is not the first time authorities thwart threats of this kind.
Last month, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said authorities had detained an individual allegedly working for the Kremlin and who was plotting to murder an American-Ukrainian citizen in Warsaw.
Tusk told reporters the American-Ukrainian citizen “was uncomfortable for the Putin regime”, adding: “We have to accept the assumption that the Putin regime will try to eliminate people who are inconvenient for various reasons.”
In 2024, German authorities were reportedly warned by US intelligence of a Russian plot to kill Armin Papperger, the head of Germany’s biggest arms company Rheinmetall.
Moscow dismissed the accusation at the time, with Kremlin spokesman Peskov saying: “It’s all presented in the style of another fake story, so such reports cannot be taken seriously.”
The fresh accusations from the DoJ come at a time of closer relations between Moscow and Washington following US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2025.
A few weeks ago, the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) visited Moscow for talks with figures from Russia’s intelligence services – an unconventional move that led to speculation.
The Kremlin confirmed that talks between John Ratcliffe and the intelligence services had taken place. President Trump did not say what was discussed but described the meeting as “semi-routine”.
