FSB hitman who tried to kill city council official in Zaporizhzhia region gets 15 years in prison

Based on evidence gathered by the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), an FSB agent who had been preparing to kill a city council official in the Zaporizhzhia region has been sentenced to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property.

SSU officers caught the hitman in the act in August 2024, when, posing as an electrician, he was heading to the home of the intended victim, whom he planned to kill with a hammer blow to the head, Censor.NET reports.

What is known?

The investigation established that the enemy mission was carried out by a repeat offender from Melitopol, who had come to the attention of the occupiers while serving a sentence in a Russian prison for premeditated murder even before the full-scale invasion.

In June 2024, a Russian intelligence operative contacted him and offered cooperation in exchange for a house on the temporarily occupied left bank of the region.

The recruited agent was then sent to special training courses at an FSB training centre in temporarily occupied Melitopol. There, he underwent firearms training, knife-fighting training, and practised covert methods.

After the training, the agent was "deployed" to Zaporizhzhia, where he settled in a rented apartment and tracked the victim’s movements.

It was established that after killing the official, the perpetrator planned to flee to the temporarily occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region through EU territory, using one of the "draft-dodger schemes."

Security Service officers established the hired killer’s whereabouts and detained him before he could commit the crime.

During searches at the scene and in the rented apartment, investigators seized tools, a utility worker’s uniform he had bought to avoid suspicion, and a smartphone containing evidence of collaboration with the enemy.

Based on the Security Service’s evidence, the court found the agent guilty under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: