Member of "Servant of People" election commission was FSB agent, tried to assassinate drone designer in Zaporizhzhia – media
In June 2024, an assassination attempt was made in Zaporizhzhia on Rudolf Akopian, one of Ukraine’s drone developers, allegedly ordered by Russia’s FSB. According to the investigation, the key suspect, Mykhailo Dorozhko, had already begun cooperating with the FSB when he was appointed to the Zaporizhzhia City Election Commission in December 2023 — as a representative of the "Servant of the People" party.
This was reported by the Zaporizhzhia Investigation Centre, Censor.NET reports.
According to the investigation, Dorozhko had been communicating with the FSB curator under the nickname vavilon in a telegram since the summer of 2023. Later, he involved his friend Artem Mykhailiuk, who lived nearby, in his agent work. However, they received the task of killing Rudolf Akopian only in April 2024.
It is reported that the volunteer was targeted for assassination in his own vehicle. The perpetrators tracked his movements using a GPS tracker. According to court records, the tracker was ordered and handed over to the executors by Hennadii Borysov — who is accused in a separate case. Borysov and another individual, Oleh Puzanov, an employee of Motor Sich, are currently on trial for adjusting Russian missile strikes on the company’s facilities.
According to court documents, Dorozhko obtained an explosive device, while Mykhailyuk assisted in configuring and synchronizing its components. On June 9, Dorozhko placed the device under Akopian’s vehicle — a Dodge RAM pickup — and returned to it the following morning. Law enforcement believes he planned to wait for the target to appear and detonate the device while having a direct line of sight. He was detained at the scene while waiting.
Akopian told Zaporizhzhia Investigation Centre that he currently works as Director of Strategic Communications at UAV Systems Research Center LLC. However, at the time of the attempted assassination on June 10, 2024, he had not yet signed an employment contract with the company and was acting as a volunteer.
According to the Central Election Commission, Mykhailo Dorozhko was appointed to the Zaporizhzhia City Election Commission in December 2023 (after he had already begun cooperating with the FSB) as a representative of the Servant of the People party. Commission members who worked alongside Dorozhko described him as "not a particularly competent person who ended up in their field by accident." They also noted they had not seen him since June 2024.
The CEC resolution to replace Dorozhko, based on a submission from the party, was published on June 20 — ten days after his arrest. The aforementioned Hennadii Borysov, who supplied the GPS tracker, was employed at the time of his detention as deputy chief physician for administrative and logistical affairs at the specialized children’s home Sonechko.
