MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Wednesday it had arrested seven people connected with Ukrainian intelligence and accused them of planning “a series of high-profile sabotage and terrorist acts” in Russian-annexed Crimea.
In a statement, the FSB said the group had planned attacks against Russian-installed officials including local governor Sergei Aksyonov. It said it had seized explosives identical to those used to attack railways in the peninsula in February.
In a statement, Aksyonov said the same group was behind both alleged incidents. He said, without providing evidence, that there was no doubt that the Ukrainian government was behind them.
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and used it as one of the launchpads for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Separately on Wednesday, Russian emergency services blamed a large fire at a fuel depot on the Taman peninsula, which adjoins Crimea across the Kerch strait, on a drone falling on the facility.
(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
