Putin panic as assassins target top Kremlin official for elimination | World | News
Russia’s security services claim to have foiled an assassination attempt on a former Defense Minister. Sergey Shogui was the boss of the Ministry of Defense in February 2022, when Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
He was eventually replaced in May 2024 and replaced by Andrey Belousov. Shogui was blamed by many in Russia for the poor performance of the Kremlin army and had a famous quarrel with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former leader of the Wagner militia. The Wagner boss launched a scathing attack on the then Defense Minister in June 2023, accusing him of needlessly starting a war in Ukraine.
“The war was necessary… so Shoigu could become a Marshal and earn a second Hero Star,” he fumed in a video posted online. “The war was not for the demilitarization or de-Naziization of Ukraine. It was necessary for an extra star.”
Now Russia’s FSB security agency has claimed to have foiled a plot to kill the former Defense chief.
The agency claimed that Ukrainian intelligence services formed a team of four people to carry out the assassination.
The team allegedly consisted of a husband and wife from Russia, an illegal immigrant from Central Asia, and a Kiev resident named Jaloliddin Shamsov.
An FSB video was published on state media channels showing the arrested woman confessing to her role in the plot.
The assassination was supposed to take place while Shogui was visiting the family grave at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.
The woman said she was promised drugs by her caretaker, a man named Ruslan, in exchange for placing the hidden camera vase on the grave in the cemetery.
The woman’s age and name were not disclosed, and the question of whether she was coerced into making a false confession remains open.
The FSB said it had issued an arrest warrant for Shemsov on charges of illegal arms trafficking and murder, reportedly linked to a 2021 murder in the Republic of Bashkortostan.
Scores of Kremlin officials and pro-Kremlin figures have been killed by assassins both in Russia and in the occupied regions of Ukraine since the start of the extensive war.
