There are 12 suspects in the case – members of a cell of the National Socialism/White Power terrorist organization named in the Russian Federation, led by Mikhail Balashov.
Only two of them are accused of preparing the assassination attempt (as well as illegally obtaining weapons) – Balashov and Evgeny Savelyev. The rest are charged with promoting terrorist activities, robbery and hooliganism, public calls for extremist activities, inciting hatred and national enmity.
The investigation claims that Balashov and Savelyev, “at the order of unidentified persons,” agreed to kill Simonyan for $50 thousand. They allegedly followed the propagandist, and also received firearms and ammunition from an unknown customer.
The criminal case has been sent to the prosecutor's office for approval of the indictment and subsequent transfer to court.
TASS wrote that the same group, according to investigators, was preparing an assassination attempt on another Russian propagandist, Ksenia Sobchak. Initially, eight people were detained in the case, three of them were minors. Later it became known about three new defendants, who were also under 18 years old. On October 14, TASS indicated that the case of the assassination attempt on Putin’s propagandists would be considered by one of Moscow’s military courts.
Context
Simonyan is the editor-in-chief of the state television channel RT, the Rossiya Segodnya news agency, and the Sputnik news agency. Against Simonyan, how indicated on the website of the Ukrainian National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, the European Union, Canada, Great Britain and a number of other countries imposed sanctions.
In July of the same year, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation announced the detention of suspects in the Simonyan and Sobchak case. They allegedly found a Kalashnikov assault rifle with 90 rounds of ammunition, knives, brass knuckles, rubber batons, handcuffs, chevrons and flags with Nazi symbols, Nazi literature, communications equipment and “computers with information confirming their criminal intentions.” Then the FSB claimed that the performers received about $18 thousand.
