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The United States Department of Justice has formally leveled charges against five men associated with Russian intelligence networks, accusing them of orchestrating international plots to surveil and assassinate individuals supportive of Ukraine across the United States and Europe. Federal prosecutors revealed that the suspects attempted to hire operatives to execute violent strikes against political dissidents and figures aligned with Kyiv.
According to federal indictments unveiled on Tuesday, the accused operatives sought to finance and coordinate contract killings by paying or attempting to pay individuals located both domestically and overseas. The targets of these lethal operations were specifically chosen because they were perceived by Moscow as actively supporting Ukraine or opposing the Russian state.
Attorney General Todd Blanche underscored the gravity of the foreign threat to domestic security, stating that the primary duty of federal law enforcement is to prevent foreign adversaries from directing acts of terror and violence inside the United States. Federal authorities confirmed that all five named defendants remain at large, and their current whereabouts have not been publicly determined.
The Russian government responded cautiously to the allegations on Wednesday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov informed journalists that Moscow will refrain from offering any substantive commentary on the matter until the United States provides verifiable facts and credible evidence to substantiate the charges.
Among the five indicted individuals, federal prosecutors identified three as high-ranking operatives operating within the Russian Intelligence Services network. These figures allegedly leveraged their state connections and international ties to manage, fund, and direct operational cells tasked with tracking and eliminating designated targets abroad.
The indicted senior figures include a Russian father and son: 63-year-old Yuri Khrameev, identified by prosecutors as a former colonel within the Russian intelligence services, and his 27-year-old son, Kirill Khrameev, who serves as an active officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service. The third high-ranking operative named in the indictment is Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a 35-year-old Cuban national residing in Russia, whom American authorities identified as an influential diaspora figure responsible for organizing attacks for the intelligence network.
The indictment also names two additional defendants, 35-year-old Yaidel Delgado Suarez and 22-year-old Angel Eduardo Castro. Investigators allege that Suarez and Castro played operational roles in identifying, soliciting, and attempting to hire local recruits within the United States to conduct surveillance and carry out assassinations against prominent figures.
Federal court filings detailed a specific scheme unfolding as recently as this summer, during which the Russian intelligence apparatus attempted to assassinate a prominent Russian dissident living in the United States. Prosecutors allege that Suarez provided a recruited US resident with explicit operational instructions to conduct physical surveillance on two separate locations tied to the intended target, paying between $1,000 and $1,500 for the intelligence gathering.
Following the initial surveillance phase, Suarez and Castro allegedly offered the recruited operative a bounty of $40,000 to eliminate the dissident entirely. However, the plan unraveled when the recruit refused to execute the murder. Undeterred, Suarez subsequently approached multiple other individuals across the country, dangling substantial cash incentives in a continued bid to complete the lethal contract.
Federal prosecutors also uncovered an international assassination attempt orchestrated in 2025. In that operation, Kirill Khrameev allegedly recruited an American citizen to travel to Lithuania to monitor and murder a target accused of spreading lies about the Russian government. Court documents quote the younger Khrameev explaining that the objective was to systematically retaliate against nations offering assistance to Ukraine.
His father, the former intelligence colonel Yuri Khrameev, reportedly offered the operative $25,000 to carry out the murder in Lithuania. The elder Khrameev justified the hit by claiming the target was actively distorting history and spreading damaging claims regarding the Russian state.
All five defendants have been charged with participating in a conspiracy to finance terrorism, a statutory violation that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison upon conviction. Additionally, Yuri Khrameev, Suarez, and Castro face separate charges of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, which carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years behind bars.
James Barnacle of the Federal Bureau of Investigation emphasized the sweeping geographic reach of the enterprise, noting that the network conspired to intimidate, threaten, and murder targets on American soil and across foreign jurisdictions. Law enforcement officials warned that the tactics reflect an ongoing willingness by foreign actors to outsource violence to local proxies.
The indictments follow several other disrupted plots in Europe linked to Russian operations. Just last month, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed the arrest of an operative allegedly working for the Kremlin who was plotting to assassinate a joint American-Ukrainian citizen in Warsaw. Tusk warned that authorities must operate under the assumption that Moscow will actively seek to eliminate figures deemed inconvenient to the regime.
European security officials have previously faced similar threats, including a 2024 episode where American intelligence alerted German authorities to a Kremlin plot targeting Armin Papperger, the chief executive of the major German defense contractor Rheinmetall. Moscow dismissed those allegations at the time, with Peskov labeling the reports as baseless fabrications.
The new charges arrive during a complex diplomatic period marked by renewed direct engagement between Washington and Moscow following Donald Trump’s return to the presidency in 2025. The announcement comes just weeks after CIA Director John Ratcliffe held unconventional talks with Russian intelligence officials in Moscow, a high-level meeting confirmed by the Kremlin and later described by President Trump as semi-routine.
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