An exiled Russian opposition determine residing in the US says he was warned by American and Lithuanian security providers that his life was in hazard.
Former chess world champion Garry Kasparov said he was one of two dissidents instructed to take precautions, which he had carried out.
His feedback come after the US Justice Department unsealed an indictment earlier this month charging 5 people who allegedly work for the Kremlin with plotting attacks and murders in international locations including the US, focusing on Russian dissidents and defectors.
Kasparov wrote on his Substack that he had not been instructed explicitly that he and Free Russia Forum co-founder Ivan Tyutrin were thought-about targets, but said both had been warned about their security.
Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that it had obtained info that Kasparov, along with another Russian opposition determine, Ilya Ponomarev, had been warned about the plot over the summer season by US authorities.
Citing sources close to Kasparov, the paper said he had been positioned under enhanced safety over the summer season for the first time since he moved to the US.
Kasparov wrote individually: “I will not stop and I will not hide, even if I thought it was possible to do so.
“My household and I will not really be protected as long as [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is in energy in Russia – a circumstance shared by hundreds of thousands.”
Kasparov retired from competitive chess in 2005 to pursue a career in politics, founding movements that openly opposed Putin before fleeing Russia in 2013.
He has not returned since. Russia has classed him as a foreign agent following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and subsequently added him to a list of terrorists and extremists in 2024 – both categorisations he rejects.
The other reported target, Ponomarev, was the only Russian MP who voted against the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and went into exile in Ukraine.
He declined to confirm or deny to the Moscow Times whether he had been tipped off about the alleged plot but said the allegations marked “a new degree of escalation” by Russia.
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