French police arrest 4 in alleged plot targeting exiled Russian activist and Putin critic

PARIS (AP) — Police in France detained four people suspected in a plot targeting exiled Russian rights activist Vladimir Osechkin, who exposes abuses in Russian prisons, France's national anti-terror prosecution office said.

In an interview with The Associated Press Friday, Osechkin, who founded a rights group for prisoners in the notoriously tough Russian carceral system, said he believed Russia's security services were behind a plot to kill him after he saw video evidence from French police, including video footage of his home.

“I saw how everyone was filming, how they prepared the sites from which to shoot,” he told the AP, adding he believes “this was an expensive special operation, sanctioned and financed from Moscow.”

The General Directorate for Internal Security, France’s counter-espionage and counterterror intelligence service, has been the leading the investigation, the anti-terror prosecution office said on Thursday evening.

It said four men aged between 26 and 38 were detained Monday but gave no details about their nationalities, any possible motives for allegedly targeting Osechkin or whether the men are suspected of links to foreign spy services. Osechkin said he believes some of the men detained are from Dagestan, a majority Muslim republic in southern Russia.

Following questioning, France’s anti-terror prosecution office said the four men are being kept in detention on a preliminary terror-related charge, enabling investigators to continue holding them while the probe continues.

French officials did not confirm there had been an attempt on Osechkin’s life. The AP did not immediately receive a reply from the Russian Foreign Ministry over the allegations.

A campaign of alleged Russian sabotage and attacks

The French intelligence service is among multiple European agencies that have been investigating what Western officials say is a broad campaign of alleged Russian sabotage and hybrid warfare targeting European allies of Ukraine. That campaign has included multiple arson attacks across Europe, as well as cyberattacks and espionage.

Four European intelligence officials told the AP earlier this year that Moscow is threatening exiled opponents and running what they described as an assassination program targeting perceived enemies of the state. That has included attempts to assassinate high-profile figures such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while in Poland and the head of a German arms manufacturer that provides weapons to Ukraine. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The Kremlin has previously denied Russia is carrying out a sabotage campaign against the West.

Osechkin has long suspected that he could be targeted for possible assassination because of his work, even in exile in Biarritz, the beach resort town on southwest France’s Atlantic seaboard where he lives. He said there have been several threats on his life since 2022, most recently in February this year.

He said the suspects “circled the area” and filmed in detail the place where he regularly did livestreams on his social media channels and looked for escape routes to leave unnoticed.

Osechkin said he believes he is only alive because French police previously provided him with protection. He said he remains at risk although French police carried out arrests in the wake of earlier death threats, adding that he and his family are often moved to safe houses when new threats emerge.

“Those who were arrested are just a part of the overall picture, they are part of a big team,” he said.

Activism work includes videos and accounts of Russian prisons

During questioning, Osechkin said French authorities asked him about his activities and “in what way this could cause anger and aggression from the Kremlin, Putin and his intelligence services and why they are trying to kill me.”

Osechkin sought political asylum in France after fleeing Russia under pressure from authorities over his prison activism. His group routinely publishes videos and accounts of alleged torture and corruption in Russian prisons, and he was among the first to reveal that Russia’s military was recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine.

His group, Gulagu.net, also helped bring Russian fugitive paratrooper Pavel Filatiev to France in 2022. Filatiev served in Ukraine war before being injured, and later published accounts online of what he saw, accusing the Russian military leadership of betraying their own troops out of incompetence and corruption.