A plot to eliminate opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin was uncovered and thwarted in France before it could be carried out.
According to the daily newspaper Le Parisien on October 17 (local time), the French General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) arrested four men in their 20s and 30s with French and Russian citizenship on October 13 on charges of forming a terrorist organization and conspiracy to commit murder.
They are suspected of attempting to assassinate Vladimir Osechkin, an opponent of Putin who resides in Biarritz in southwestern France.
Osechkin is the founder of the human rights organization "Gulagu.net," which has exposed torture and corruption within Russian prisons and released internal documents related to politics and the military. He has been living in exile in France since 2015.
Investigations revealed that the suspects had appeared several times in the Biarritz area, where Osechkin lives, since this spring. A video found on one of their mobile phones showed the exterior of Osechkin's residential building. In the footage, which was filmed from inside a car, a man is seen asking someone to walk past the building and also turning the camera toward a child's bicycle.
French authorities believe that this incident was likely a reconnaissance operation in preparation for an assassination by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (GRU).
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