Authorities in Russia are looking into an alleged plot to “remove” President Vladimir Putin, according to a report, after receiving a tip about a suspicious conversation in a karaoke bar.
According to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, Russian security services have spent several days looking for an employee of an unspecified law enforcement agency who was accused of being involved.
Citing an anonymous source, the Telegram account claims Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs was alerted to a “secret conspiracy against the head of state” by a specialist in the presidential administrative directorate.
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The specialist had reportedly received an early morning call from a 37-year-old man named Mikhail Yurchenko, who told them “with alarm” about a concerning conversation he had in a karaoke club named Honey in the town of Chekhov, around 40 miles south of Moscow.
At the club, Yurchenko reportedly had a long conversation “about the war and future life in Russia” with another man in the club. “At some point, according to Yurchenko, the interlocutor showed him a red service ID and stated that he had a task ‘to remove Vladimir Putin,’” VChK-OGPU reports.
Yurchenko allegedly did not see the details on the man’s ID and was unable to remember his name. It is worth noting that counterfeit service ID cards are available to purchase in the Russian capital, though VChK-OGPU also notes that this particular karaoke bar is known to be popular with employees of various agencies.
After being “haunted” by what he’d heard, Yurchenko decided to report the conversation. As a result of his tip, “operatives went to study the situation” at the karaoke club, according to the account.
Putin is reported to be extremely paranoid about his safety, which has been more imperiled since his invasion of Ukraine last year. In May, a senior Ukrainian intelligence commander openly discussed his spies being used to try to kill Putin. The startling admission came just weeks after Moscow described a drone attack on the Kremlin as an “assassination attempt on the president of Russia” and a planned “terrorist attack.”
A month earlier, a drone packed with explosives crashed in a village close to an industrial park outside of Moscow where, on the same day, Putin was rumored to have planned a visit. It’s not clear if it was a failed assassination plot as claimed by a Ukrainian activist, who said that Kyiv’s intelligence services had received intelligence about Putin’s visit in the week before the drone fell.
