The attempted assassination of a Russian dissident is foiled in France
The alleged plot targeted Vladimir Osechkin, a human-rights activist in exile and a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
PARIS—Authorities detained four men suspected of preparing a plot targeting a Russian dissident living in France, antiterrorism prosecutors said on Friday
Prosecutors didn’t give the name of the dissident, but Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian national, identified himself as the target of this plot in a phone interview on Friday. Osechkin heads Gulagu.net, a human-rights organization that came to prominence exposing corruption and torture in Russian prisons and now helps opponents of President Vladimir Putin’s government leave Russia.
“They hired professional mercenary killers," he said from Biarritz, in southwestern France, adding that the Russian state has been trying to kill him for years.
French authorities said the four men, aged between 26 and 38, were taken into police custody on Monday. On Thursday, prosecutors pressed preliminary charges against them for participating in a terrorist criminal conspiracy, with the intent to prepare one or more crimes against individuals.
Thousands of Russians have left their homeland since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and commenced a crackdown on opposition activists inside the country, passing laws that barred most forms of dissent and criminalized criticism of the war.
Many of those who have left have set up precarious new lives in Europe, often struggling to find work and living in perpetual fear of becoming targets of the Russian state. In March 2024, Leonid Volkov, a close aide of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was attacked outside his home in Vilnius, Lithuania. He blamed the Russian government for targeting him because of his work exposing corruption.
The new arrests in France come as President Trump prepares to meet Putin for talks on ending the war in Ukraine. The two leaders agreed during a phone call this week to hold a meeting in Budapest, at a date yet to be announced. Trump is meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday at the White House.
Osechkin sought political asylum in France after leaving Russia under pressure from the Kremlin over his activism exposing abuse in Russia’s prisons. He has since published videos of torture in Russia’s penitentiary system and collected accounts from prison guards Russian military deserters who are now giving testimony to international courts. He now lives under protection from the French government.
Osechkin has also facilitated the flight from Russia of active servicemen who refused to fight, publicizing their cases and sometimes helping organize accommodation and legal representation for them in European countries.
In 2022, Osechkin told police he had been the target of an assassination attempt at his home, after receiving death threats. Local prosecutors opened an investigation but said they found no evidence at the time of an assassination attempt. Osechkin said prosecutors played down the threat because media attention to the case was preventing him from living a normal life.
In a YouTube broadcast on Thursday, Osechkin said he regularly received information about Russian assassination attempts planned for him.
He said the most recent warnings were about plans to shoot him during a recording of one of his regular livestreams on YouTube, after the alleged assassins had scoped out his location in the south of France.
“This was supposed to happen live on air, as theatrically as possible," he said to his one million followers on the video-sharing platform. “To sow fear among those who deal with investigations exposing the crimes of the Putin regime."
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