DOJ charges five Russian intelligence agents with global assassination plots including in US

The U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment on September 15, 2026, charging five alleged Russian intelligence operatives with conspiracy to finance terrorism and murder-for-hire. The network, led by former Russian intelligence colonel Yuri Khrameev, allegedly targeted Kremlin critics globally, including a failed $40,000 plot to assassinate a dissident in Washington, D.C. The group also orchestrated sabotage against infrastructure in European countries supporting Ukraine. All five defendants remain at large.

Russian intelligence assassination network charges

• ▪The five defendants charged in the September 2026 indictment are Yuri Khrameev, Kirill Khrameev, Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, Yaidel Delgado Suarez, and Angel Eduardo Castro.
• ▪On September 15, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment in Manhattan charging five alleged Russian intelligence operatives with conspiracy to finance terrorism.
• ▪All five defendants charged in the September 2026 indictment remain at large and are believed to reside in Russia.
• ▪Yuri Khrameev, Yaidel Delgado Suarez, and Angel Eduardo Castro face additional charges of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire in the September 2026 indictment.

Washington D.C. murder-for-hire plot

• ▪Between July and August 2026, the Russian intelligence network allegedly orchestrated a plot to surveil and murder an unnamed prominent Russian dissident believed to live in the Washington, D.C. area.
• ▪The Washington, D.C. murder plot fell apart after the recruited Brooklyn resident completed the surveillance but refused to carry out the murder.
• ▪The conspirators in the Russian intelligence network allegedly offered a Brooklyn-based Venezuelan resident $40,000 to "eliminate" or "disappear" the Washington-area Russian dissident.

Global targeting of Kremlin critics

• ▪The 2025 murder plot in Lithuania failed because the recruited U.S. citizen refused to carry out the killing, fearing he would be caught.
• ▪In 2025, former Russian intelligence colonel Yuri Khrameev allegedly offered a U.S. citizen $25,000 to murder a Kremlin critic living in Vilnius, Lithuania.
• ▪The unsealed September 2026 indictment alleges that the Russian intelligence network has been active since at least 2024 targeting Kremlin critics and defectors globally.

Recruitment of U.S.-based operatives

• ▪In late June 2025, Kirill Khrameev met an unnamed U.S. citizen at the Estonia-Russia border and paid him $200 to take photos of a target's address in Vilnius, Lithuania.
• ▪The Russian intelligence network allegedly recruited a Brooklyn-based Venezuelan resident to film two Washington-area locations associated with a Russian dissident for $1,000 to $1,500.

European infrastructure sabotage operations

• ▪After the recruited U.S. citizen refused to commit murder in 2025, Yuri Khrameev allegedly offered him money to set fire to a warehouse or electrical substation in NATO countries supporting Ukraine.
• ▪The September 2026 indictment accuses Oemis Romagoza Durruthy of coordinating travel, booking hotels, and transferring cryptocurrency to associates involved in failed 2024 arson attacks in Prague and Lithuania.

Debatable claims

• ▪The US should treat foreign state-sponsored assassination plots as acts of war
• ▪NATO should militarily retaliate against Russian sabotage of civilian infrastructure
• ▪DOJ indictments of out-of-reach foreign agents are an effective deterrent