DOJ Charges 5 Russian Operatives in Murder Plot
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged five alleged members of a Russian intelligence-linked network with conspiring to finance terrorism and commit murder-for-hire, accusing them of running a global assassination-and-sabotage operation that reached into the United States and targetted a prominent dissident believed to be living near Washington, D.C. The indictment was unsealed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, September 15, and the defendants remain at large, prosecutors said.
According to the Justice Department, the network paid and attempted to pay individuals inside the United States and abroad to conduct surveillance and carry out targeted killings, and commissioned associates to commit acts of terrorism against civilian and military infrastructure in European countries aligned with Ukraine.
The Accused
The indictment names three alleged high-ranking members of what prosecutors call the “RIS Network.” Yuri Khrameev, 63, also known as “Colonel Yuri,” is described as a former colonel in Russian intelligence who recruited individuals to murder perceived Russian dissidents. His son, Kirill Khrameev, 27, is identified as an officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB. The third is Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, 35, a Cuban national described as an influential member of the Cuban diaspora in Russia who coordinated attacks for the network.
Two additional defendants, Yaidel Delgado Suarez, 35, also known as “Viking,” and Angel Eduardo Castro, 22, of Venezuela, are alleged to have served as recruiters. All five are charged with conspiracy to finance terrorism, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years. Yuri Khrameev, Suarez and Castro also face a count of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, carrying up to 10 years.
The charges are accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The Alleged U.S. Plot
Prosecutors allege that between July and August 2026, the network recruited a Venezuelan citizen living in Brooklyn, identified only as U.S. Resident-1, to surveil and murder a Russian dissident the group believed was in the United States. CBS News reported that Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters the operatives believed the target lived in the Washington, D.C., area.
Suarez allegedly sent the recruit two addresses associated with the intended victim, provided explicit surveillance instructions, and promised between $1,000 and $1,500 for the reconnaissance. The recruit carried out the surveillance, sending back photographs and videos. Suarez and Castro then offered $40,000 to “eliminate” or “disappear” the target, the indictment says.
When the recruit declined to carry out the killing himself, the pair asked whether he knew “someone [who] can do the work,” prosecutors said. According to NPR, the recruiters used code words, asking if he knew “someone who wants to do construction” — which prosecutors say referred to carrying out the murder. Surveillance instructions allegedly included placing the phone in airplane mode while recording footage near the house, NBC News reported.
The FBI said it disrupted the plot, though officials did not detail how.
A Second Plot, and Sabotage in Europe
The indictment also describes an alleged 2025 plot involving a U.S. citizen recruited at the Estonia-Russia border. Kirill Khrameev allegedly paid the American $200 to travel to an address in Vilnius, Lithuania, and take photographs of a man the network described as a “bad guy” telling lies about Russia. Yuri Khrameev then allegedly offered about $25,000 to kill the target, who he said was “spreading dirt” about his country and “distorting history,” according to ABC News.
Khrameev suggested the killing could be done by throwing a bottle of gasoline or stabbing the victim, the indictment says. When the American declined, he was offered a “simpler job”: setting fire to a warehouse or a bottle of gasoline at an electrical substation.
“I am interested in all the countries that are helping Ukraine,” Khrameev allegedly wrote, adding that he sought to target military and dual-use facilities “located in the countries of the NATO military bloc.”
Durruthy is separately accused of coordinating logistics for attacks in Prague in June 2024 and in Lithuania that September, including booking travel and hotels. Those episodes appear to correspond to previously reported arson attempts—an effort to set fire to buses in the Czech Republic and a plot against a Lithuanian facility supplying radio equipment to Ukraine. Lithuanian authorities publicly named Durruthy as wanted in January, according to the Lithuanian broadcaster LRT.
A Wider Pattern
The case is the latest in a series of Western accusations that the Kremlin is conducting hybrid warfare and transnational repression against its critics and Ukraine’s allies. As CBS News noted, Russia has long been accused of seeking to kill anti-regime figures abroad—including the 2020 nerve-agent poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who later died in a Russian prison, and the 2018 poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the United Kingdom. The Putin administration has consistently denied involvement in attacks on critics.
In recent years, Poland, Germany and Czechia have accused Russia of sabotage on their soil. American intelligence agencies assessed over the summer that Russian President Vladimir Putin could be increasingly willing to authorize provocative actions on NATO territory short of war, likely to test the alliance’s unity, CBS News reported. CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow last month, where discussions included a warning not to attack NATO.
“These defendants allegedly operated as part of a global assassination network that reached into the United States, attempting to recruit U.S. citizens and foreigners to carry out killings at the behest of the Kremlin,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “Actions like these represent a gross violation of our sovereignty and a threat to our national security.”
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said the charges should send a clear message. “No matter where you are, and no matter who you work for, we will investigate and prosecute you for your crimes,” he said.
The Kremlin declined to engage with the allegations. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “until we have heard or seen any reasonable evidence and arguments based on at least something tangible, we do not consider it necessary to comment on this news.”
What’s Next
The five defendants remain at large and are believed to live in Russia, making prosecution unlikely in the near term. The case nonetheless carries significant signaling value: it is one of the most detailed U.S. public accounts to date of an alleged Russian assassination network operating across continents, and it places Washington’s allegations alongside those of its European allies.
Key questions remain. Officials have not named the intended dissident target or explained how the FBI disrupted the plot. Whether the defendants are ever brought to justice—and whether the case alters the calculus in Moscow as the war in Ukraine grinds on—will be closely watched by U.S. and NATO officials alike.