Russia claims Ukrainian intelligence officer killed in Ukraine

Russia claimed on Sunday that a Ukrainian military intelligence officer, whom Russia accused of attempting an assassination in Crimea, was killed last month in Ukraine.

Citing intelligence sources, Russian state news agency Tass said that Col. Rustem Fakhriyev was killed in Ukraine on May 18.

TASS reported that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Fakhriyev of organizing an attempted assassination of a senior Russian Defense Ministry official in Crimea last December.

The FSB said at the time that its officers had killed a Ukrainian agent who was planting a bomb under the officer's car.

Late last year, Russia's financial monitoring agency, Rosfinmonitoring, added Fakhriyev to its list of terrorists and extremists.

Ukraine has not commented on the Russian claims, and Anadolu could not independently verify the reports.

In a move branded illegal by many countries, including Türkiye, Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014.