Russia's FSB says it cracks Ukrainian network planning assassinations in Crimea

The Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s principal successor to the Soviet-era KGB, announced on Monday that it had broken up a network of Ukrainian spies in Crimea who were involved in assassination attempts against pro-Russian officials. It named as targets the Moscow-appointed Crimean leader, Sergei Aksyonov, and a former pro-Russian member of Ukraine’s parliament, Oleg Tsaryov. Tsaryov was shot twice in an October attack in Crimea, which Russia invaded from Ukraine in 2014. At the time, a source in Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency told Reuters that the shooting was an SBU operation. According to the FSB, the Ukrainian network also targeted railway and energy facilities on the peninsula. It said it had found caches of arms and explosives, and detained 18 “agents and accomplices of the Ukrainian special services”.