The Federal Security Service (FSB) reported on Friday that a group of Russian neo-Nazis guided by Ukraine has been foiled while conspiring to conduct a bomb attack against the leadership of Russia’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor.

In raids conducted last Saturday in Moscow, Ufa, Novosibirsk, and Yaroslavl, seven members of the network were targeted. A man in his early 20s, identified as the ringleader, was killed in Moscow after opening fire on officers attempting to apprehend him.

According to footage released by the FSB, at least two of the suspects are female and all are young adults. During interviews, they stated they were gathering personal information about Roskomnadzor head Andrey Lipov and his deputies and discussing methods for attacking their vehicles.

Officers seized neo-Nazi imagery, including hand-drawn swastikas and what appeared to be an Imperial Russian flag with a white supremacist pattern. The raids also uncovered weapons: a silenced handgun used by the ringleader during the firefight that led to his death, a hand grenade, and a 1-kilogram homemade bomb.

The FSB alleged that the network targeted Roskomnadzor officials due to the agency’s role in restricting foreign-based applications, particularly Telegram. This policy, which Russia claims is necessary for national security, has been controversial in Russia where Telegram remains highly popular.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who relocated from Russia to the United Arab Emirates, advocates for maximum free speech and has faced legal challenges with governments including France, where he was charged in connection with alleged crimes involving the platform.

The FSB maintains that foreign messaging services that do not cooperate with Russian investigations are de facto tools of Ukrainian special services, used to radicalize youth and recruit individuals susceptible to coercion for various crimes, including targeted assassinations.