In a sweeping announcement that has escalated cross-border tensions between Washington and Moscow, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) unveiled charges Tuesday against five men with alleged ties to Russian intelligence services, accusing them of orchestrating a far-reaching conspiracy to murder individuals aligned with Ukraine across the United States and Europe.
Three of the accused are named as senior operatives within Russian intelligence circles. The group includes 63-year-old Yuri Khrameev, a retired colonel in Russia’s main intelligence service, and his 27-year-old son Kirill Khrameev, an active officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Rounding out the three high-ranking suspects is Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a 35-year-old Cuban national who U.S. officials describe as a well-connected member of the pro-Russian Cuban diaspora, tasked with coordinating violent operations on behalf of Russian intelligence. The remaining two defendants are 35-year-old Yaidel Delgado Suarez and 22-year-old Angel Eduardo Castro.
According to DoJ filings, Suarez and Castro allegedly directed a targeted assassination plot against a high-profile Russian dissident residing in the U.S. as recently as this summer. Court documents detail how the pair recruited a U.S.-based individual to conduct surveillance of the victim, providing explicit instructions on monitoring protocols and offering an initial payment of $1,000 to $1,500 for the work. The two men reportedly promised an additional $40,000 payout if the recruit successfully “eliminated” the dissident. The plot ultimately collapsed when the recruited individual backed out of the plan, prompting Suarez to reach out to multiple other people within the U.S. in search of a new operative, the DoJ says.
A separate 2025 plot detailed in the charging documents links Kirill Khrameev to a plan to kill an individual in Lithuania who spoke critically of Russia. His father Yuri allegedly offered a U.S. recruit $25,000 to carry out the killing, saying the target was spreading misinformation and “dirt about my country” that distorted Russian history. The senior Khrameev framed the operation as part of a broader effort to target people in nations that support Ukraine, according to the DoJ.
All five defendants face charges of conspiracy to finance terrorism, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. Yuri Khrameev, Suarez and Castro face additional charges of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, which adds a potential maximum 10-year prison sentence if convictions are obtained. As of the DoJ’s announcement, all five accused remain at large, with no confirmation of their current location, whether inside the U.S. or abroad.
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche emphasized the gravity of the alleged plot in a statement, saying “It is our job to stop America’s adversaries from unleashing violence and terror on American soil.” FBI official James Barnacle added that the network “conspired to intimidate, threaten, or murder people on US soil and around the world.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded Wednesday to the charges, saying Moscow would withhold comment until it is presented with “credible evidence” and “tangible facts” supporting the U.S. accusations. This aligns with the Kremlin’s past response to similar allegations: in 2024, when U.S. intelligence warned German officials of a purported Russian plot to assassinate Armin Papperger, CEO of leading German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, Peskov dismissed the claims as a “fake story” not worthy of serious consideration. More recently last month, Polish authorities detained a suspect accused of working for the Kremlin to kill an American-Ukrainian activist in Warsaw, a plot Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk framed as consistent with the Putin regime’s pattern of eliminating people it finds inconvenient.
The new charges come at a notable diplomatic moment: just weeks before the DoJ announcement, CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unprecedented trip to Moscow for talks with Russian intelligence leaders, a meeting that followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2025 return to the White House and sparked widespread speculation about a potential thaw in U.S.-Russia relations. Trump has described the closed-door meeting as “semi-routine,” while the Kremlin confirmed the talks took place but has not released details of what was discussed.