U.S. charges five in a Russian intelligence network accused of plotting killings in America and Europe

The U.S. Department of Justice unsealed charges on 15 September against five people it says worked for a Russian intelligence-services network that paid, or tried to pay, recruits to watch and kill targets in the United States and in European countries aligned with Ukraine.

The indictment was filed in Manhattan federal court. All five defendants remain at large. James C. Barnacle Jr., assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York field office, said the bureau disrupted the plans through what he called relentless work. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said the network tried to recruit U.S. citizens and foreigners to carry out killings for the Kremlin.

Prosecutors describe the group as one arm of the Russian Federation's apparatus for external attacks. They say it first focused on Russian dissidents and defectors and, after the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, on people and infrastructure in states seen as Ukraine's allies. The alleged activity runs from at least 2024.

The names in the caption

Three defendants are described as senior figures in the network. Yuri Khrameev, 63, is called a former Russian intelligence colonel. In messages with a U.S. recruit he identified himself as a colonel of Russian intelligence agencies, offered what he called serious money for serious work, and said the aim was to target all the countries helping Ukraine. Prosecutors say he discussed killing a man in Lithuania, described as someone telling lies about Russia, by throwing a bottle of gasoline or using a knife.

Kirill Khrameev, 27, is described as Yuri's son and an officer of Russia's Federal Security Service. Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, 35, a Cuban national living in Russia, is accused of coordinating attacks in Czechia and Lithuania in 2024. The other two defendants are not as fully described in the public summary. Prosecutors say members of the network also tried to recruit people inside the United States for pre-operational surveillance and murder on U.S. soil.

One message quoted in court papers refers to people already in Mexico who were delayed, and asks only for a yes or no on whether the work can be done. That line is the part of the file that places the alleged recruitment on the North American side of the border, not only in Europe.

What the charges cover

The counts include conspiracy to finance terrorism and murder for hire. The indictment also says associates were asked to attack civilian and military infrastructure in European states that support Ukraine. Those are separate alleged tasks from the targeted killings. One is a person. The other is a site.

The case does not claim a completed murder on U.S. territory. It claims a conspiracy that reached into the United States and was stopped before the listed acts were carried out. That is why the five names are still at large and why the FBI is presenting the filing as a disruption rather than a post-attack prosecution.

How it sits next to other files

Western services have, since 2022, publicly attributed warehouse fires, rail sabotage and parcel-bomb plots in Europe to Russian military intelligence. This indictment is the first Manhattan case in this cycle that puts murder-for-hire inside the United States on the same sheet as European infrastructure attacks and names a self-described colonel in the chat.

Russia has not issued a detailed reply to the five names. The Kremlin's usual line on such cases is that they are fabricated. The court papers will now have to be tested if any defendant is arrested and extradited. Until then the public record is the indictment, the quotes from the chats, and the fact that none of the five is in U.S. custody.