The Federal Security Service (FSB), the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Investigative Committee mounted a joint operation to thwart preparations by Ukrainian special services-affiliated militants to assassinate Rossiya Segodnya editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, the FSB announced Saturday.
Simonyan is the editor-in-chief of the Rossiya Segodnya news agency, parent company of Sputnik and the RT broadcaster.
"In the course of the investigation, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, 90 cartridges, knives, brass knuckles, rubber truncheons, handcuffs, chevrons and flags containing Nazi symbols, Nazi literature as well as communications equipment and computers with information confirming their criminal intentions were confiscated from the detainees," the FSB said.
Along with Simonyan, the would-be assassins planned to target Ksenia Sobchak, a Russian journalist, liberal socialite, opposition figure and former presidential candidate.
The suspects, detained in raids in Moscow and Ryazan region, are said to be affiliated with a neo-Nazi group which calls itself 'Paragraph-88'.
The suspects were said to have conducted reconnaissance at Simonyan and Sobchak's homes and places of work, and confessed that they were instructed by figures affiliated with the Ukrainian military to carry out the assassinations, in exchange for a reward of 1.5 million rubles (about $17,000 US) per murder.
In a social media post, Simonyan thanked the Russian security services for thwarting the attempt on her life.
Simonyan and Sobchak's names are listed on Myrotvorets, a 'kill list' website affiliated with the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The database contains thousands of names of so-called 'enemies of Ukraine', including Ukrainian, Russian and foreign journalists, political and public figures, as well as foreigners deemed worthy of death for their supposed 'anti-Ukrainian' or 'pro-Russian' positions, such as rock musician Roger Waters, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Syrian President Bashar Assad, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Over half-a-dozen of the names on the kill list have wound up dead since its creation in 2014, most recently Russian war correspondent and blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who was blown up in a St. Petersburg cafe in April. In May, journalist, author and politician Zakhar Prilepin was targeted in a car bombing attack, but miraculously survived.
This is the second time in a year that the Russian security services have charged the Ukrainian special services with trying to assassinate Simonyan using Russia-based neo-Nazis. Last year, members of an ultra-right group tasked with killing her and other Russian media figures were arrested in a series of FSB raids.