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Russia Ramps Up Targeted Assassination Attempts Across Europe Using Criminal Proxies
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Russia has significantly escalated its campaign of targeted assassinations across Europe since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, shifting its focus to Russian dissidents and foreign supporters of Ukraine, ABC News reported on May 7, citing three Western intelligence officials.
According to the officials, Russian security services are now increasingly relying on criminal proxies rather than intelligence officers to carry out these attacks. This change of tactics follows the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats and spies by Western nations following the 2018 poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Britain.
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“This campaign is not by accident or chance,” a senior European intelligence official stated. “There is political authorization.”
European law enforcement agencies have recently disrupted multiple assassination plots linked to Moscow, ABC News wrote.
In France, authorities detained four men from Russia’s Dagestan region in April 2025 who were surveilling the Biarritz home of Russian human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin to lay the groundwork for an assassination. Meanwhile, in Lithuania, police discovered a GPS tracker on the vehicle of independence activist Ruslan Gabbasov in February 2025, shortly before detaining a gunman waiting near his home.
The following month, Lithuanian authorities also foiled a bomb plot targeting Valdas Bartkevičius, a vocal supporter of Ukraine. Officials in Germany have similarly intercepted two separate plots targeting the head of a German weapons manufacturer and a Ukrainian military official, according to ABC News.
These follow incidents in 2024, which included the arrest of a man in Poland plotting to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the fatal shooting of defected Russian helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzminov in Spain.
Lithuanian prosecutors have charged 13 individuals from at least seven countries in connection with the local plots. Prosecutors stated the operations were directly ordered by Russian military intelligence and involved networks connected to Russian organized crime. These networks are also suspected of executing broader sabotage and arson campaigns across Europe.
ABC News notes that, despite the severe threats, targeted activists have largely refused offers from local police to change their identities and go into hiding, arguing that disappearing would only achieve the Kremlin’s objectives.
The operational details of many of these plots were previously further outlined by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. Working with international law enforcement, Ukrainian authorities dismantled a Russian intelligence network that had been operating since August 2024.
According to investigators, the group recruited individuals with criminal backgrounds from multiple countries—including Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Georgia—to execute contract killings and sabotage across the European Union. In Lithuania, operatives conducted prolonged surveillance on a Russian opposition activist and a local supporter of Ukraine before authorities thwarted the planned assassinations.
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