Vladimir Osechkin requires police escorts for routine activities like dropping his children at school or grocery shopping.
The Russian dissident has remained under French government protection since 2022 due to credible threats on his life from Moscow, according to authorities.
Court records obtained by The Associated Press reveal that in April 2025, a group of Russian operatives conducted extensive surveillance of Osechkin’s residence and neighborhood in southwestern France, capturing photographs and video footage as apparent preparation for a murder attempt. Previously, Osechkin reported seeing what appeared to be a laser targeting device aimed at his home.
Similar threats have emerged throughout Europe. Lithuanian authorities thwarted assassination schemes last year targeting both a Lithuanian Ukraine advocate and a Russian dissident. German officials intercepted two separate plots: one aimed at a German defense contractor supplying weapons to Ukraine, and another targeting a Ukrainian military leader. Polish law enforcement arrested an individual in 2024 allegedly planning to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That same year, a defected Russian helicopter pilot was murdered in Spain, with Russian agents considered the primary suspects.
Although Russian leadership has faced longstanding accusations of eliminating overseas opponents, three Western intelligence sources from separate nations informed AP that these targeted elimination efforts have intensified following President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 Ukrainian offensive.
These officials indicated that Russian intelligence agencies have become increasingly aggressive in target selection, pursuing Russian dissidents and international Ukraine supporters alongside traditional targets such as military defectors. All sources requested anonymity when discussing classified matters.
“This campaign is not by accident or chance,” stated a senior European intelligence official. “There is political authorization.”
Intelligence personnel, a former high-ranking British counterterrorism leader, and Lithuanian prosecutors view this assassination campaign as part of Russia’s broader strategy to destabilize European nations supporting Ukraine, including 191 documented acts of sabotage, arson and disruption attributed to Russia by Western officials that AP has tracked across Europe since the conflict began.
Many individuals implicated in these operations were recruited as low-cost operatives for Russian intelligence services. Moscow now employs this recruitment strategy to eliminate perceived enemies internationally, according to French judicial documents, officials and Lithuanian prosecutorial information.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment when contacted by AP. Russian officials have consistently denied Moscow’s involvement in overseas assassination attempts.
AP interviewed three intended victims: Osechkin; Lithuanian activist Valdas Bartkevičius; and Ruslan Gabbasov, who campaigns for Bashkortostan regional independence from Russia.
French police detained four men in the Osechkin assassination plot, with three traveling to the coastal resort town of Biarritz, where Osechkin resides, in April 2025, court records indicate. They conducted surveillance of his residence “with a view to assassinating him and subsequently intimidating all political opponents of the Russian authorities living in France,” according to the documents.
All four suspects originated from Russia’s Dagestan region. One possessed multiple criminal records while another claimed arrest by Russian domestic security forces before fleeing to avoid Ukrainian military deployment.
Osechkin established a prisoner advocacy organization years ago and operates a project documenting Russian prison system violations, but he noted that threats intensified after investigating alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine and assisting Russian military defectors in escaping.
He relocated to France in 2015 and received police protection seven years later when French authorities learned of credible death threats.
“If it weren’t for them, I probably would have been killed,” he stated.
In Lithuania, Gabbasov, the Bashkortostan independence advocate, discovered an Apple AirTag tracking device concealed on his vehicle in February 2025. Police instructed him to leave the tracker in place while they monitored his pursuers, he explained.
Several weeks later, while attending Lithuanian independence celebrations with his wife and 5-year-old son, officers contacted Gabbasov and warned him against returning home.
The following day, officers informed him: “Yesterday, a killer was detained near your house; he was waiting for you with a gun. … He was ready to wait for you all night.”
Lithuanian officials offered Gabbasov the opportunity to completely “disappear” — assuming a new identity, relocating, and abandoning his activism.
He declined, explaining that many people from his predominantly Muslim homeland near Kazakhstan view him as a leader in the independence movement. The region holds strategic importance for the Kremlin due to its gold deposits and because many of its men have been deployed to fight in Ukraine, Gabbasov noted.
“I can’t betray them all by simply disappearing, especially out of fear,” Gabbasov said, adding that such action would serve Moscow’s interests.
“What difference does it make to them?” Gabbasov questioned, referring to Russian security services. “They could kill me … or I could hide from everyone and stop engaging in political activity. That’s exactly what they want.”
Lithuanian authorities extended the same offer to Bartkevičius after discovering a plot to murder him using an explosive device planted in his mailbox in March 2025.
However, disappearing was not viable for the activist who fundraises for Ukraine and gained recognition for anti-Russian demonstrations, including desecrating a Russian war memorial.
Such action would constitute “social death,” he declared.
Lithuanian prosecutors have charged 13 individuals from at least seven nations with involvement in both assassination schemes — representing at least 20 people that authorities have detained, charged or identified as participants in European assassination plots within the past year.
Those involved in the Lithuanian cases received direct orders from Russian military intelligence, prosecutors stated, and some maintained connections to Russian organized crime while being linked to additional arson and espionage operations throughout Europe.
Moscow’s shift toward proxy operatives can be traced to a previous assassination attempt, according to Cmdr. Dominic Murphy, who spoke to AP before retiring as head of Britain’s Metropolitan Police counterterrorism unit.
In 2018, former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal was poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury, England — an attack the British government attributed to Moscow using military intelligence personnel.
In retaliation, Britain and other Western nations expelled hundreds of Russian diplomats — and intelligence operatives — complicating Russian officer operations in Europe, explained Murphy, who led the investigation.
The fact that most assassination plots disclosed by Western officials since 2022 have been prevented could suggest that Moscow faces greater difficulty executing operations through proxies rather than its own personnel, one Western intelligence official noted.
Nevertheless, these assassination attempts may serve additional objectives, including intimidating Kremlin opponents into silence and depleting European law enforcement resources, they added.
Referencing the case of Maxim Kuzminov — the helicopter pilot who defected and was threatened with death by masked military personnel on Russian state television — the official emphasized that Russia’s security services can successfully eliminate targets in Europe when determined to do so.
For this reason, the European intelligence official concluded, targets will never achieve complete safety.
“Even if you thwart an operation once, you still need to be ready in case they strike again.”
