US authorities warned Garry Kasparov in the summer that he had become the target of a planned assassination and gave him security protection for the first time since he moved to New York in 2013, El Mundo reported, citing sources in the politicians' circles.
The Russian network advanced furthest in preparing the killing of Ilya Ponomarev, according to the newspaper. A Venezuelan living in Brooklyn, acting on instructions from another member of the network — his compatriot Angel Eduardo Castro — photographed two sites in Washington linked to a man US prosecutors call "Victim No. 1." The killing of that man carried a fee of $40,000.
The man took and sent several photographs and videos but made clear he was prepared only to take pictures, not to do "that other thing," El Mundo reported. He was then asked to find someone else to carry out the killing. Photographing the sites paid between $1,000 and $1,500.
Coded phrases were used to plan each stage: the expression "measure the plot and take the dimensions" meant preliminary surveillance, while "construction" meant the killing itself. The attack did not take place because the recruited man changed his mind, according to El Mundo.
Another opposition figure was to be killed in Vilnius — stabbed with a knife or doused in gasoline and set on fire, the newspaper reported. The fee for that killing was $25,000. The name is not given in the outlet's materials, but its journalists write that the possible target could have been Vladimir Kara-Murza.
El Mundo also describes how two members of the group allegedly paid about $200 to a US citizen to photograph the home address of a Russian opposition figure in Vilnius. Since 2024 the group had been watching Ivan Tyutrin, a co-founder of the Free Russia Forum, who was under protection at the time. In recent months police again warned him that he had become a target, but it is unclear from the case materials whether he was the opposition figure who was to be killed in Vilnius.
The list of potential targets also included Bashkir activist Ruslan Gabbasov, founder of the Committee of the Bashkir National Movement Abroad, according to El Mundo. In 2025 he found a tracking device on his car, and the Lithuanian prosecutor's office later uncovered a plan to kill him. In April 2026, Delfi reported that a 55-year-old man suspected of preparing a double killing on Lithuanian territory had been detained in Greece. One of the intended victims could have been Gabbasov; he himself confirmed that Lithuanian special services had uncovered an attempt on his life.
The US Justice Department on September 15 indicted five alleged members of a network that investigators say acted in the interests of Russian special services and prepared sabotage and killings in the United States and Europe. Among the accused is 63-year-old Yuri Khrameev, a former commander of the Northwest OMON riot police unit, who claims he worked with Putin in his youth and later received awards from his hands. According to US authorities, the network also included Khrameev's son Kirill, a border guard serving in Ivangorod; Cuba natives living in Russia Omiis Romanos Durruti and Yaidel Delgado Suarez; and Venezuelan Angel Eduardo Castro.
All five are accused of conspiracy to finance terrorism, and three of them also of conspiracy to commit murder for hire. All five live in Russia and remain at large. Before the US Justice Department's statement, Durruti had already appeared in investigations into a series of arson attacks in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Lithuania that began no later than 2024.