In an entirely bizarre – though perhaps not completely without precedent – allegation from the Russian government, Ukrainian and British intelligence attempted to steal a MiG-31 fighter jet equipped with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that it had thwarted the alleged plot in which the foreign spies allegedly offered Russian pilots $3 million if they would perform the heist.
The RIA news agency quoted the FSB as saying the stolen aircraft was intended to be flown toward a NATO base in the Romanian city of Constanta.
“The measures taken have thwarted the Ukrainian and British intelligence services’ plans for a large-scale provocation,” RIA quoted the FSB as saying.
But this is where the high-risk caper and narrative gets even stranger. The FSB isn’t alleging that Ukraine was simply trying to steal the Russian hypersonic missile or aircraft in order to use it, but that the whole objective was to see the MiG-31 get shot down while inbound over NATO-member Romania’s airspace
“In order to hijack the aircraft, Ukrainian military intelligence officers tried to recruit Russian pilots, offering $3 million,” the FSB statement reads. “The special services then planned to send the jet with the Kinzhal missile to the area where NATO’s largest airbase in southeastern Europe is located, in the Romanian city of Constanta, where it could be shot down by air defenses,” it emphasized.
Apparently Russian intelligence is saying all of this was ultimately aimed at creative a huge false-flag operation, or major provocation, in order to drastically escalate NATO tensions with Moscow, which would see the West intervene more directly on Kiev’s behalf.
Russia’s RT has offered a precedent for Ukrainian intelligence seeking to lure Russian pilots to its side, writing the following:
Kiev has previously offered money and assistance to defectors. In 2023, Russian Mi-8 pilot Maksim Kuzminov defected to Ukraine, landing his helicopter behind the front lines with the HUR’s help. Two of the other crew members, unaware of his plan, were killed upon landing. Kuzminov was assassinated a year later in Spain, where he was living under a new identity and with a Ukrainian passport.
In 2022, the FSB accused former Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian-born journalist, of taking part in a failed Ukrainian attempt to recruit Russian military pilots. Grozev said he was embedded with Ukrainian intelligence officers as a documentary filmmaker and claimed that his text messages were forged.
NATO operations in Constanta currently serve as a significant hub for the military alliance’s operations in Eastern Europe, with at least 5,000 multi-national troops stationed there. These numbers are expected to grow as the NATO base there is undergoing expansion.
As for the fresh FSB claims of the attempted jet and hypersonic missile theft, Ukraine and the UK will no doubt express outrage and denial, but it does serve to illustrate the level of suspicion and ‘shadow wars’ currently raging in the background related to the Ukraine conflict.