Tikhon Shevkunov
Suspects detained in Moscow: a Ukrainian and a Russian. Kremlin’s intelligence agency says the two confessed to being recruited by the Ukrainian special services “to eliminate” the religious leader of Crimea.
The main Russian intelligence agency said Friday that it frustrated an attack on the Orthodox Church leader in Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and held Ukraine. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement that “frustrated an attack planned by Ukrainian special services against Tikhon Shevkunov“.
Tikhon, 66, who was appointed leader of the Orthodox Church in Simferopol and Crimea in 2023, has a doctorate in history and is also editor-in-chief of the Pravoslavie Orthodox News Site. The priest is also a member of the Russian President’s Advisory Board for Culture and the Arts and was decorated in 2024 by Vladimir Putin by participation in the reconstruction of a museum complex in Crimea. It has been known by the Russian media for years as “the confessor of Putin,” and portrayed as very close to the Russian leader.
Explosive Engines and False Passports
A Russian citizen and a Ukrainian citizen were arrested In the Russian capital, the statement says. The FSB said the two were recruited by the Ukrainian special services through the Telegram messaging platform to attack during a Tikhon to Moscow trip.
The suspects will have confessed to having received an impromptu explosive ingenuity in December, “to physically eliminate” Tikhon and who should then abandon Moscow with fake passports. The agency said an investigation was opened on preparations for an attack and explosive trafficking.
One of the men, Nikita Ivankovichhe is a Russian cleric of a Moscow Church. The other, Denis PopovichUkrainian born in the western city of Chernivtsi, worked as an assistant to Shevkunov.
Popovich said, according to the Russian authorities, that he had been recruited to monitor Shevkunov’s movements and was threatened with the murder of his family members if he did not obey. He also said that the plan was to put a bomb in a residential building of the 14th century Sretensky Monastery in Moscow.
The Ukrainian military secret services spokesman told the accusations that the accusations are “absurd” and “lie.”
Several Russian or pro-Russian personalities have been targeted from the beginning of the Ukraine Russian invasion in February 2022. Most of these attacks were attributed to Kiev or claimed by Ukrainian secret services, the latest being in December in Moscow.
