FSB announces female detained while planting car bomb

(MENAFN) Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Thursday that it had apprehended a young woman in St. Petersburg while she was attempting to plant a bomb under a vehicle belonging to a defense industry employee. Authorities claim she was acting on instructions from Ukrainian intelligence services.

According to the FSB’s statement, the woman, born in 2002, was detained in the act as she tried to place an improvised explosive device (IED) beneath the car. The agency released footage showing her sliding a package under a Mercedes SUV while using her phone.

Initially, the suspect told authorities she had only been tasked with tracking the vehicle but soon admitted she had been attempting to plant a device.

The FSB reported that in June 2024, the woman contacted Ukrainian special services, offering to carry out sabotage and terrorist operations in exchange for assistance in leaving Russia and securing citizenship in an EU country.

Before the car bomb attempt, she had allegedly completed other tasks for her Ukrainian handlers, including painting pro-Ukrainian slogans in Moscow Region and trying to set fire to a railway facility. In April 2025, she traveled to St. Petersburg to track her intended target and planned to destroy the car using the IED.

Russian authorities have repeatedly accused Ukraine of orchestrating sabotage and assassination plots against Russian officials and public figures. In one high-profile case in December 2024, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense Troops, was killed in Moscow by a bomb attached to a scooter, a killing for which Kiev later claimed responsibility.

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