Russia's FSB thwarts Ukrainian plots to assassinate high-ranking military personnel, 4 detained (WATCH)

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) on Thursday announced that it had thwarted multiple assassination attempts by Ukrainian intelligence services targeting high-ranking Russian officers and their families in Moscow. The plots involved bombs concealed as power banks or document folders.

Additionally, Ukraine's SBU intelligence service was responsible for the December 17 killing of Lieutenant General Kirillov, the head of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops, in Moscow. He was killed outside his apartment building when a bomb attached to an electric scooter exploded.

A source from Ukraine's SBU was quoted in a Reuters report stating that the Ukrainian intelligence agency was responsible for the assassination. Russia labeled the killing a terrorist attack by Kyiv and vowed retaliation.

"The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation has prevented a series of assassination attempts on high-ranking military personnel of the Defence Ministry," the FSB said.

"Four Russian citizens involved in the preparation of these attacks have been detained."

The FSB, the primary successor to the Soviet-era KGB, reported that the arrested Russian citizens had been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services. One of the individuals had retrieved a bomb disguised as a power bank in Moscow, intended to be attached with magnets to the car of a high-ranking Defence Ministry official.

Another Russian was assigned to conduct surveillance on senior Russian defence officials. One of the plots involved delivering a bomb hidden inside a document folder, according to the FSB.