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The Department of Justice detailed an indictment against a network it described as operating on behalf of Russian intelligence services since at least 2024 to target perceived Ukraine supporters through surveillance, contract killings and acts of sabotage. Three of the accused are identified as senior figures in the group, which authorities say shifted its focus from Russian dissidents to countries backing Kyiv amid the ongoing conflict. Attorney General Todd Blanche emphasized the need to counter adversaries seeking to spread violence on American soil while the charges carry potential sentences of up to 20 years for conspiracy to finance terrorism.
Yuri Khrameev, a 63-year-old former Russian intelligence colonel, faces the charges alongside his 27-year-old son Kirill, an officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service, according to the department. The other defendants include Cuban nationals Oemis Romagoza Durruthy and Yaidel Delgado Suarez, both 35, as well as 22-year-old Venezuelan Angel Eduardo Castro, all of whom remain at large and are believed to be in Russia. The indictment portrays the group as one element of a broader apparatus for external operations including murder.
This summer the network recruited a US-based individual to gather information on a prominent Russian dissident thought to reside in the Washington area before offering $40,000 to eliminate the target, the Justice Department reported. When that person refused the murder contract the recruiters allegedly proposed arson against a warehouse or electrical substation instead with Yuri Khrameev stating the aim was to strike all countries assisting Ukraine and offering serious money for serious work. A separate 2025 effort sought to hire another American to kill a target in Lithuania for $25,000 over claims the individual was spreading falsehoods about Russia.
The group additionally stands accused of coordinating failed 2024 arson operations in Europe including an attempt to burn buses in the Czech Republic and a plot against a Lithuanian site providing radio equipment to Ukrainian forces. These activities formed part of a pattern in which the network solicited recruits in the United States and elsewhere to conduct pre-operational surveillance and carry out violence, according to prosecutors. FBI officials described the effort as a conspiracy to intimidate, threaten or murder people on US soil and around the world.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg characterized the defendants as operating within a global assassination network that extended its reach into the United States at the Kremlin’s direction. “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,” Eisenberg said. The department noted that similar Russian-linked activities have drawn scrutiny from European governments in recent years.
All five men face the core charge of conspiracy to finance terrorism while Khrameev, Suarez and Castro face the additional count of conspiracy to commit murder for hire. The case underscores ongoing concerns about foreign influence operations as Western nations continue to support Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, a development tracked by multiple international outlets including Reuters and The Guardian. No immediate response to the indictment was available from Russian authorities.
