FSB arrests foreign national over Ukrainian drone plot

The suspect ended up in custody as he tried to illegally leave Russia for Norway, the agency has said

Russian security officers have detained a foreign national suspected of surveilling critical infrastructure sites on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Friday.

The suspect was taken into custody this month in Murmansk Region near the border, as he sought to illegally cross into Norway, the agency said in a statement. The detained man is believed to have a longstanding relationship with Kiev’s special services, having voluntarily contacted them back in 2023 for the first time, according to FSB.

The man’s Ukrainian handlers had ordered him to travel to Moscow and conduct reconnaissance at a key train hub “to identify freight trains transporting petroleum products, as well as administrative buildings in the city center,” the FSB said. He was involved in an “attempt to launch an FPV drone” to gather the intelligence, it added.

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The Kiev regime has intensified attempts to stage terrorist attacks in Russia to compensate for the mounting pressure it has been experiencing on the frontline, as well as its inability to inflict “meaningful damage on critical infrastructure sites in Moscow Region,” the agency warned. The planned attacks involve short-range kamikaze drones that were supposed to be launched from an immediate vicinity of targeted sites by planted agents and local collaborators recruited online, including victims of fraudulent Ukrainian call centers, the FSB said. Involvement in such activities incurs heavy penalties under Russian law, up to life behind bars, the agency stressed.

Last month, the FSB said it had thwarted a major Ukrainian FPV drone plot, which involved smuggling 24 AI-guided drones into the country and using them to target a key defense industry enterprise and military airfields. The failed operation had been prepared by Kiev’s intelligence with the direct involvement of Western handlers, the agency said at the time.

The disassembled drones had been flown into Russia using fixed-wing UAVs and balloons, which were collected by the suspects and transferred deeper into the country for assembly and preparations for the attack. However, the whole operation had been closely monitored by Russian secret services from the very beginning, and the perpetrators and their accomplices ended up in custody.