FSB reports foiled assassination attempt on "Orthodox oligarch" Malofeev

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The FSB today announced that it had prevented an assassination attempt on the founder of the Tsargrad TV channel and sponsor of the 2014 events in Donbass, Konstantin Malofeev. The Russian Volunteer Legion, which claimed responsibility for the attack in the Bryansk region last week, allegedly tried to blow him up. But there are obvious oddities in the FSB's version.

According to the FSB, the Ukrainian special services were the customers of the assassination attempt on Malofeev, and the organizer was “the founder of the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps, Russian citizen Denis Kapustin, acting under the control of the SBU” (also known as Nikitin. — The Bell). Last week, the “RDK” claimed responsibility for the attack on border villages in the Bryansk region; we wrote about this organization in detail here .

The FSB claims that the organizers were planning to blow up Malofeev's car by planting a bomb under it. The special service published a video that allegedly captured the moment of the bombing - a certain person right under the surveillance camera waits for a moment near the Mercedes, bends down to it and walks away quickly. A video of the remote demining is also attached - it is clear that it is no longer taking place on the street, but in an underground parking lot.

Konstantin Malofeev is a former investment banker who bought a large stake in Rostelecom in the late 2000s and was considered a protégé of presidential aide Igor Shchegolev. In the early 2010s, a criminal case of fraud was opened against Malofeev, but after the businessman took an active part in the annexation of Crimea and the incitement of war in Donbass in 2014, the case was closed . Malofeev is the founder of the ultra-patriotic TV channel Tsargrad, and in the late 2010s, he tried to start a public political career by creating the Double-Headed Eagle movement. The Bell has a detailed investigation into his career.

The FSB specifically noted that the assassination attempt was planned "according to the same scheme that was used to kill Darya Dugina" in the summer of 2022 in the Moscow region. Vladimir Putin recalled the explosion of Dugina's car on March 2, when he commented on the attack on the villages of Lyubechane and Sushany in the Bryansk region. On the piece of paper from which Putin read his speech, it was written by hand: "Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina."

The FSB also attributed another allegedly prevented terrorist attack to the Russian Volunteer Corps: an attempt to blow up an “oil and gas facility in the Volgograd region” on August 15, 2022. The FSB reported on that incident while it was still fresh in the trail, but at that time the perpetrators of the explosion (they were killed during their arrest) were called “Russians from the right-wing radical group Restrukt, created by nationalist Maxim Martsinkevich (Tesak).” Now the FSB has named them by name: Keiner and Ushkov, and reported that they were “Kapustin’s connections — supporters of the right-wing radical organizations he organized: White Rex, Restrukt, Thor Steiner, and Carpathian Sich.”

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