US prosecutors say a Russian network offered $40,000 to kill a dissident in America. One defendant was already wanted in Lithuania.

On Tuesday 15 September the US Justice Department unsealed an indictment against five people it says work for Russia’s intelligence services. Its release puts prices on the work: between $1,000 and $1,500 to watch addresses linked to a Russian dissident in the United States, then $40,000 to “eliminate” or “disappear” that person.¹

None of it has been tested in court. The release ends by saying an indictment is merely an allegation and that all defendants are presumed innocent. Its first paragraph ends: “The defendants remain at large.”¹

The five are Yuri Khrameev, described as a former colonel in the Russian intelligence services; his son Kirill Khrameev, described as an FSB officer; Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a Cuban national living in Russia; Yaidel Delgado Suarez, of Cuba; and Angel Eduardo Castro, of Venezuela. All five are charged with conspiracy to finance terrorism. Yuri Khrameev, Suarez and Castro are also charged with conspiracy to commit murder for hire.¹

The release says that this summer Suarez sent a person it calls U.S. Resident-1 two locations associated with the dissident, Victim-1, with instructions on how to watch them. The recruit did so and sent back photographs and videos. Suarez and Castro then offered the $40,000. The recruit said he did not want to carry out the murder by his own hand, and was asked if he knew “someone [who] can do the work.”¹

The Associated Press, citing the indictment, adds that the recruit was a Venezuelan citizen living in Brooklyn and that the target was believed to be in Washington, D.C. AP also has Yuri Khrameev recruiting alongside Suarez and Castro.² The release’s account of the approach names Suarez and Castro.¹ This desk tried to open the indictment and could not.

A second plot, which the release dates to last year, started at $200: the sum Kirill Khrameev allegedly promised a U.S. citizen for photographs of the purported address of a person in Lithuania. Yuri Khrameev, introduced as the “boss” and a “colonel”, then allegedly offered approximately $25,000 to “kill him”. When the American declined, he was offered a “simpler job”, such as “throw[ing] a bottle of gasoline at an electrical substation”, with the stated purpose of targeting “all the countries that are helping Ukraine.”¹

The head of the FBI’s New York office says the bureau “disrupted this operation”. The release does not say how or when, and announces no arrest.¹

The release alleges that Durruthy coordinated an attack in Prague in or about June 2024 and another in Lithuania in or about September 2024. It adds that in or about November 2025 he communicated with Yuri Khrameev and obtained media of one of Victim-1’s dwellings, the one U.S. Resident-1 later surveilled.¹

Lithuania had his name first. LRT reported on 16 January that prosecutors had sent six foreign nationals to Šiauliai Regional Court over a September 2024 attempt to burn equipment that TVC Solutions makes for Ukraine’s armed forces, and were seeking three more people under international warrants, among them Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a dual Cuban-Russian citizen born in 1991. A police official, Saulius Briginas, said the plot’s alleged masterminds had been identified and placed on wanted lists: “They have effectively been eliminated from further criminal activity.”³ The trial opened in April behind closed doors. None of the six had admitted guilt.⁴

On 14 September, the day before the unsealing, Deutsche Welle and three partner broadcasters identified Durruthy as the man behind the online aliases “Dios” and “Adrian”: a Latin dance teacher in Petrozavodsk. DW says he recruited at least a dozen people and, over four months in 2024, directed arson against two construction-supply businesses in Poland, a bus garage in the Czech Republic, a recycling facility in Romania and the Lithuanian equipment. At least nine recruits have been caught. DW says it is unclear whether he kept recruiting after September 2024, and reports that in April his studio posted a video of him teaching a salsa class. He did not reply to its requests for comment.⁵

The Justice Department writes “intelligence services” and names the FSB for one defendant.¹ Lithuanian prosecutors say the Šiauliai attempt was “carried out on the orders of and for the benefit of Russia’s GRU”.³ DW notes that they were the only authorities to attribute the arson series publicly to the GRU.⁵ No page read here reconciles the two.

The Kremlin answered on 16 September. “So far we have not seen coherent evidence, and we do not consider it necessary to comment on this news,” Dmitry Peskov said, in this desk’s translation of RBC’s Russian text.⁶

In January, Briginas said of the Šiauliai plot’s alleged masterminds: “They have effectively been eliminated from further criminal activity.”³ In September, the Justice Department said of its five: “The defendants remain at large.”¹