Russia says it foiled UK-Ukrainian plot to hijack jet armed with hypersonic missile
Kiev planned to have the plane flown towards a NATO base in Constanta on the Black Sea, Moscow says.
Russia said on Tuesday it had foiled an Anglo-Ukrainian plot to hijack a military jet carrying a hypersonic missile which they planned to take to Romania in a "large-scale provocation".
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had "uncovered and thwarted an operation by the... Ukrainian Ministry of Defence and its British supervisors to steal a Russian MiG-31 high-altitude supersonic fighter jet, which carries the Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched missile".
It accused Kiev of trying to "recruit Russian pilots" by promising them $3 million and citizenship of a Western country.
Kiev planned to have the plane flown towards a NATO base in Constanta on the Black Sea, where it would have been "shot down" by air-defences, the FSB said.
The security services said it had "thwarted the plans of the Ukrainian and British services to organise the large-scale provocation".
State media published an FSB video showing a Russian soldier, face concealed, saying that he had received an email from a Ukrainian intelligence agent trying to recruit him for the plot.
In retaliation, the FSB said Russian forces had hit a Ukrainian military intelligence centre and airfield in the Kiev and Khmelnitsky regions.
Throughout its almost four-year Ukraine offensive, Russia has been hit with sabotage attacks — usually on its rail network — and regularly hands out heavy jail sentences to those accused of treason.
In August 2023, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter pilot defected to Ukraine after flying into Ukraine in an operation led by Kiev's security services.
His crew members were unaware of his intentions and were killed as they tried to escape, both Kiev and Moscow had said at the time.
The pilot, Maxim Kuzminov, was found dead in Spain in February 2024.