Russia says foiled plot to hijack missile-carrying jet
MOSCOW
Russia said Tuesday it had foiled an Anglo-Ukrainian plot to hijack a military jet carrying a hypersonic missile which they planned to take to Romania in a "large-scale provocation."
Russia, which launched its full-scale offensive against Ukraine in 2022, regularly accuses Kiev and its European allies of brazen sabotage operations on its soil, often without providing evidence.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had "uncovered and thwarted an operation by the... Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and its British supervisors to steal a Russian MiG-31 high-altitude supersonic fighter jet, which carries the Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched missile."
It accused Kiev of trying to "recruit Russian pilots" by promising them $3 million and citizenship of a Western country.
Kiev planned to have the plane flown towards a NATO base in Constanta on the Black Sea, where it would have been "shot down" by air-defenses, the FSB said.
The security services said it had "thwarted the plans of the Ukrainian and British services to organize the large-scale provocation."
State media published an FSB video showing a Russian soldier, face concealed, saying that he had received an email from a Ukrainian intelligence agent trying to recruit him for the plot.
In retaliation, the FSB said Russian forces had hit a Ukrainian military intelligence center and airfield in the Kiev and Khmelnitsky regions.
Throughout its almost four-year Ukraine offensive, Russia has been hit with sabotage attacks, usually on its rail network, and regularly hands out heavy jail sentences to those accused of treason.
