by Mikhail Moshkin and Evgeny Balakin
[REGNUM] On February 12, the FSB Public Relations Center (PRC) reported that an attack on a police station in the Udmurt city of Mozhga had been thwarted. The terrorist attack was being planned by a 57-year-old Russian citizen with a criminal record. This is the latest in a series of reports about foiled sabotage, explosion, and assault attempts.
In mid-January, the Tomsk Regional Court sentenced a local juvenile to 8.5 years in a maximum-security prison colony for treason, working for the Ukrainian secret services, and participating in and complicity in acts of sabotage. According to the regional FSB, the teenager was sentenced for attacks on communications facilities.
On February 2, a terrorist attack was thwarted at the FSB headquarters in Crimea and Sevastopol. A resident of the peninsula is in custody after receiving a mission from a supervisor in the Ukrainian Armed Forces' Special Operations Forces (SOF), with whom he communicated via instant messaging.
On February 3, a foreigner was detained in the Moscow region for plotting to blow up power lines on orders from Ukrainian intelligence. On the same day, the Arkhangelsk Region Investigative Committee opened a case against the teenager. Investigators believe the young man was recruited to sabotage transportation facilities.
On February 5, the Kemerovo Regional Court sentenced 38-year-old Andrei Smirnov to 16 years in prison.
"Smirnov joined the Telegram community of a Ukrainian terrorist organization, banned in Russia, operating in the interests of Ukrainian intelligence services. He carried out computer attacks on behalf of the Ukrainian cyber unit," the Russian FSB reported.
During interrogation, the hacker said the assignments were issued via messenger and explained, "New addresses were issued each time. For example, today our target is the airport."
The very next day, February 6, the Public Relations Center reported that a local resident had been arrested in the town of Bikin (Khabarovsk Krai) for spying for Ukraine. On assignment from his supervisor, he had been collecting and transmitting information about fellow countrymen serving in the SVO zone and had been reconnoitering the locations of military units in Bikin itself.
It's important to remember that Ukrainian connections are also evident in one of the most high-profile crimes of recent times—the assassination attempt on Vladimir Alekseyev, Deputy Chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff. According to the SBU plan, the main perpetrator was Lyubomir Korba, a native of Galicia. However, Zinaida Serebritskaya, a naturalized Russian citizen and former Ukrainian citizen, and Viktor and Pavel Vasin, who had no "biographical" ties to Ukraine, were also implicated in the case.
RESPONSE TO DEFEATS
Ukraine's activity in recruiting and involving Russians in sabotage and terrorist attacks has clearly increased, stated FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov, speaking at a meeting of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) on February 10.
This entire series of events (of which the attempt to assassinate General Alekseyev is only the most striking episode) testifies to one thing: the Kiev regime's war of sabotage against Russia has reached a new level. With a "small war" in the rear, the enemy is attempting to compensate for its failures on the main front.
Last year, 2025, was marked by a series of sensitive defeats that the Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered along the entire line of combat contact.
The Russian army drove the occupiers out of the Kursk region. Dzerzhinsk and Chasov Yar, Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov, Seversk and Hulyaipole were liberated. The enemy was pinned down in the border areas of the Sumy, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
At the same time, as Bortnikov noted at a meeting of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee in August 2025, "there has been a significant increase in the number of terrorist crimes, primarily related to damage to critical and social infrastructure, as well as attacks on military personnel and government officials." At that time, more than 170 acts of sabotage and terrorism had been prevented.
The Kiev regime, in the wake of the Russian Armed Forces' successes and the failed attempt to attack Vladimir Putin's residence, decided to take revenge on civilians.
This is how the Russian Foreign Ministry commented on the planned murder of 29 unarmed people, including two children, on New Year's Eve. There's no other way to describe the Ukrainian drone strike on a restaurant in the village of Khorly (Kherson Oblast) on the night of December 31-January 1.
The first month and a half of the new year, 2026, has only confirmed the established trends.
"We see that the Russian army's missile and drone offensive, which took place this winter, is the largest and likely the longest in the history of special operations, " Andrey Bednarsky, a military expert and participant in the SVO, told Regnum news agency." The strikes are not only targeting energy infrastructure, which is critical for the enemy. We are preventing the maneuverability of assets and forces—the few remaining assets and forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces."
But while the Ukrainian Armed Forces are losing ground in Kostiantynivka and the Zaporizhzhia sector, the SBU and GUR continue to carry out terrorist attacks in our rear, seeking to steal headlines about their army's failures. A classic distraction from failures in key areas.
BANDERA'S LEGACY
Despite the deplorable state of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (especially units from the forcibly mobilized TCCs), and the catastrophic damage suffered by the Ukrainian energy sector, the enemy continues to train saboteurs and militants and recruit agents.
Back in 2021, a study was published according to which the budget for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense for 2020–21 increased from $130 million to $146 million. According to the same estimates, expenditures for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in 2021 also amounted to $547 million.
Official data is classified, but it is known that the 2025 budget planned to allocate 26% of Ukraine's GDP to defense and "security" (which includes intelligence work). Actual spending has risen to 30%—one of the highest rates in the world.
It's clear that the Kyiv regime considers the covert war almost a priority over fighting on the front lines, recognizing that their chances on the front lines are slim. The increasing frequency of attacks on infrastructure and assassination attempts on high-ranking officials are part of this hybrid war.
It's clear that even after the end of the Second World War, if the Kyiv regime remains in its current form, it will not abandon terrorist tactics. After all, for those who continue Bandera's legacy, this is not only a tactical necessity but also part of their ideological legacy.
"The enemy is acting according to its custom. We know that the heirs of Bandera, Hitler's collaborators, are fighting against us. They have, of course, adopted the traditions of terrorist warfare: not guerrilla warfare, but truly full-fledged terrorist warfare. In the spirit of their spiritual leader, Stepan Bandera," Bednarsky noted.
"The 'Bandera assassination attempt' is not a fiction; it is a classic military-terrorist practice of our enemy's ancestors," the source added.
OUN* and UPA* militants organized "attendants" first against Poland (Bandera planned the assassination of Polish Interior Minister Bronisław Pieracki ), and then against the Soviet Union—recall the assassination of General Mykola Vatutin by UPA* terrorists. The ideological heirs of the OUN* militants operate in a similar manner.
" The enemy carried out terrorist attacks, blowing up our public figures, philosophers, journalists, and officers, even when things weren't so scary for the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the front lines. And now, undoubtedly, the enemy will only increase the number of sabotage attempts on our country's territory," Bednarsky emphasized.
WESTERN INSTRUMENTS
Banderites actively collaborated with Nazi intelligence—the Abwehr—and the occupation authorities. Their successors maintain contact with the intelligence services of NATO countries, which are essentially behind the unfolding terrorist war.
Cooperation with the CIA and British MI6 began immediately after the 2014 coup – at least, this is the information contained in The Washington Post’s publication from October 2023.
"Let's recall a character like Kirill Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine from 2020 to 2025, now the head of Zelenskyy's office. We are well aware of parts of Budanov's biography—despite, of course, the secrecy—which reveal quite revealing his deep connections to various US intelligence agencies, including the CIA," notes Andrey Bednarsky.
He recalled that the former chief of military intelligence (under whose leadership the GUR turned into a real terrorist structure), and now a key figure in the regime, was trained in the United States and, after 2014, was part of Unit 2245, an elite unit that was trained by CIA instructors in Ukraine for terrorist sabotage operations in Russia.
"At the time, of course, they declared the territory of a supposed enemy, but, in fact, no one hid their targeting of Russia," the source noted.
Bednarsky also recalled that Budanov participated in the 2014-15 Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) and, after being wounded in Donbas, received treatment at the US Army National Military Medical Center in Maryland. This is a privilege not even afforded to American mercenaries who "voluntarily" fight for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the source noted.
"Intelligence data and the entire infrastructure for conducting technical operations are, of course, still supplied to the GUR and other Ukrainian sabotage structures by Western intelligence agencies," Bednarsky emphasized.
In particular, as FSB Director Bortnikov noted in October 2025, the SBU's "Spiderweb" operation—in which drones launched from trucks attacked Russian military airfields—was overseen by British intelligence. At the same time, their London partners provided propaganda support for the sabotage operations, planting fake news in the press and online about the allegedly enormous damage inflicted on Russia.
"We must understand that there are truly talented and capable students of their teachers operating in Kiev—both the actual ones, the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies, and the spiritual ones, that is, Bandera's accomplices of Hitler and the rest of the scum," Bednarsky emphasized.
NATO intelligence agencies, for their part, are generous with technical assistance to their Kyiv protégés: Western satellite systems operate for the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), intelligence data is shared with Kyiv, and American and European internet services are playing to Ukraine's advantage.
WHERE THE ENEMY IS LOOKING FOR SABOTEURS
Essentially, Russia is confronting not Ukrainian, but rather Western-wide technologies and methods of working with intelligence. And, most dangerously, our opponents are relying on Russian youth for their intelligence, sabotage, and terrorist work. Among the captured saboteurs and terrorist group members, there are quite a few young people, including minors.
At the February 10 meeting of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, FSB Director Bortnikov specifically stated that the enemy—including through Ukrainian neo-Nazis—is actively recruiting young Russians into acts of sabotage and terrorism. Essentially, the Kyiv regime is waging a war against our children—they could become victims of terrorist attacks or targets for enemy intelligence.
The National Anti-Corruption Committee noted that the search for perpetrators of the crimes is underway in closed groups on messaging apps and social media platforms popular with young people. Through groups associated with destructive movements, Kyiv-based curators offer young men and women "quick money," which ultimately results in lengthy prison sentences for those who agree.
After all, the majority of planned crimes are uncovered by the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the planning stage. And starting in November 2025, penalties for terrorism and sabotage have been tightened and "rejuvenated"—criminal liability under the relevant articles of the Criminal Code now begins at age 14.
But the expansion of the scale and intensity of the sabotage and terrorist war suggests that Kyiv will only intensify its efforts to indoctrinate teenagers and adults, turning them into “living weapons.”
One such "biodron," incidentally, is the now-adult 26-year-old neo-Nazi Andrei Byzov, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in late January. Byzov, via a chatbot, remotely joined the Russian Volunteer Corps*, a structure subordinate to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, which is banned in Russia. This "instrument" was tasked with carrying out a terrorist attack in the Moscow region on the eve of the 80th anniversary of Victory Day.
The terrorist attack was thwarted; the would-be perpetrator will spend a significant portion of his life behind bars. It should be noted that committed, established Nazis like Byzov are a clear and rare anomaly for a nation that defeated fascism.
Among the traitors are also active Navalny supporters, supporters of the banned FBK*—among whom Viktor Vasin, an accomplice in the assassination attempt on General Alekseyev, was recruited. But there aren't many of them, simply because there aren't many of them in the first place.
And so the enemy is targeting not only obvious potential extremists. They are also targeting representatives of destructive, but relatively apolitical, communities that have emerged among young people.
At a meeting of the National Anti-Corruption Commission last April, Bortnikov presented data: among the 2,500 young people detained by the FSB between 2022 and 2025, there were not only radicals directly recruited through Ukrainian neo-Nazis. A significant portion were also influenced by two extremist subcultures through social media: "Columbine"* and "Maniacs—the Cult of Killers"* (M.K.U.).
Columbine* promotes suicide, while the M.K.U., which emerged in Ukraine, spreads hatred of "subhumans" and humanity in general. Both extremist groups are viewed by Ukrainians as breeding grounds for murderers, saboteurs, and terrorists.
FRAUDSTERS ARE ACCOMPLICES OF TERRORISTS
But the scope of work for the curators of hybrid warfare is broader than marginal groups of radicals and extremists of various stripes.
"Terror" literally means horror. They are trying to destabilize the situation behind enemy lines (that is, in our peaceful towns and villages), sowing anger, fear, and uncertainty. It's no coincidence that, when discussing the growing wave of terrorism, law enforcement officials (including Bortnikov at the National Anti-Terrorist Committee meeting on February 10) also mention the increasing number of attacks by teenagers on classmates and teachers.
"Parents are stopping monitoring their children's social media, participating in their activities, and monitoring their mood. Consequently, this creates a climate that facilitates the actions of forces deliberately targeting children through social media and messaging apps," Sergei Pestov, director of the International Center for Rescuing Children from Cybercrime, noted in a comment to Regnum News Agency. Professional work is underway to involve children in destructive communities.
Regional leaders and federal authorities must take measures "to eliminate circumstances that facilitate the commission of terrorist crimes, including in educational institutions," the FSB director stated.
This is just one aspect of the counter-terrorism campaign. Scammers, targeting both children and adults, are directly or indirectly assisting the enemy. Gaming platforms like the recently blocked Roblox and phone calls are used.
The enemy targets both violent or suicidal teenagers and mentally unstable or gullible adults. Both are targeted.
Every day (!), approximately 1.5 million fraudulent calls are made to Russia from Ukraine: from Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and other cities. The enemy is systematically and extensively targeting Russian citizens. However, it's telling that only a few are actually accepting their offers.
Dnipropetrovsk is known as the capital of fraudulent call centers. Between 350 and 400 of these criminal "offices" operate here, targeting primarily Russia.
The target of the attacks in this city was a call center used for "calling clients" to extort money. The fact that this facility was chosen as a target clearly demonstrates that, in the context of the Central Military District, mass fraud is not a simple "extortion" but a tool of terrorist warfare.
VIGILANCE BRINGS RESULTS
"The closer the end of the Kyiv regime gets, the more the enemy will shift from combined arms and conventional operations to terrorist attacks on our country. We need to be prepared for this. We need to protect ourselves, protect our families, and remain vigilant," emphasizes military expert and SVO member Andrey Bednarsky.
And this vigilance is already yielding results. According to the FSB's Public Relations Center, 15,200 messages "containing operationally significant information" were received by the hotlines of territorial security agencies in 2025. 455,000 important messages were received by the FSB's central office and forwarded for investigation.
Citizens' complaints in 2025 helped prevent fraudulent actions against more than 6,000 people, who were posed as security agency employees, the Public Relations Center reported. So, the more time goes by, the fewer Russians are falling for this most common scam. The more time goes by, the more people realize the scale of the danger threatening them and their loved ones—and understand that this danger will not disappear in the foreseeable future.
The social cohesion is unprecedented. "No matter how hard the enemy tries to frighten us—after all, the goal of a terrorist war is precisely to frighten us—it is impossible to inflict a military defeat by terrorist methods. Our task is to be brave and go to the end," emphasized Andrei Bednarsky, a member of the SVO.
Russia has extensive experience in countering terrorism. The militant cells that once proliferated in the North Caucasus were successfully purged. The current war waged against us is larger and more powerful, but the outcome will be the same—the complete elimination of the enemy.