Moscow, November 12: Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had thwarted a plot by Ukrainian and British intelligence services to bribe Russian pilots into stealing a MiG-31 fighter jet armed with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile, state media reported on Tuesday.
According to the RIA news agency, the FSB alleged that Ukrainian military intelligence, with British involvement, sought to recruit Russian pilots by offering them $3 million and foreign citizenship in exchange for flying the aircraft to a NATO air base in Constanta, Romania, where it could then be shot down by air defenses.
“The measures taken have thwarted the Ukrainian and British intelligence services’ plans for a large-scale provocation,” the FSB said in a statement cited by RIA.
Russian state television broadcast what it said were messages and voice recordings from a man working for Ukrainian and British intelligence, allegedly offering payment and safe passage to a Russian pilot willing to defect with the jet.
Reuters could not independently verify the FSB’s claims.
The MiG-31, one of Russia’s fastest fighter aircraft, is capable of carrying the Kinzhal — an air-launched ballistic missile that Moscow describes as hypersonic, capable of extremely high speeds and complex maneuvers designed to evade interception.
Russia has long portrayed Britain as one of its principal adversaries in the Ukraine conflict, accusing London of supplying intelligence and aiding Ukrainian operations inside Russian territory.
Britain, for its part, has repeatedly denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an imperial-style land grab and accused Moscow’s intelligence services of attempting to sow chaos across Europe to undermine democratic institutions.
