Russia's FSB security service has said that it has thwarted a Ukrainian plot to assassinate an unnamed top Russian government official and accused Kiev of planning similar attacks in other parts of the country.
The FSB said in a statement on Friday that the Ukrainian plot had aimed to kill the official when they visited their relatives' graves at a Moscow cemetery.
Reuters could not independently verify the FSB's assertion, but Ukraine has targeted Russian military and other officials inside Russia since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Hundreds of Ukrainian drones intercepted
Separately, Russian air defence forces shot down or intercepted 216 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Defence Ministry said on Friday.
The ministry said it had brought down 66 drones over Russia's southern Krasnodar region, where officials earlier said an oil depot and port had been targeted.
The governor of Russia's Saratov region said that drone attacks had damaged civilian infrastructure, while the head of the Volgograd region said that air defences had repelled an overnight drone attack on energy infrastructure.
