Zarev shot in Crimea
FSB arrests Russian after attack on defector
October 31, 2023, 3:55 p.m
High-ranking Ukrainian defector Oleg Zarev is shot in Crimea. He is taken to hospital seriously injured. The Russian secret service now reports the arrest of a Russian. He is said to have been involved in the crime on behalf of Kiev.
The Russian secret service FSB says it has arrested one of the suspected attackers in the attack on a high-ranking Ukrainian defector, former presidential candidate Oleg Tsarev. It is therefore a 46-year-old Russian resident in Crimea. The man is said to have organized surveillance of Zarev and prepared a weapons depot for the attack – allegedly on behalf of the Ukrainian secret service SBU – as the FSB explained.
The suspect confessed to his involvement in the crime on behalf of Kiev. The FSB’s information could not be independently verified. The suspected accomplice in the attack faces up to 20 years in prison under Russian law. The former high-ranking Ukrainian politician Zarev was seriously injured in an attack on Friday night. According to the FSB, his life is now said to be out of danger.
After the pro-European Maidan revolution in 2014, he ran for president in Ukraine, but shortly afterwards fled to Moscow-controlled militants in eastern Ukraine. Since then he has lived in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in violation of international law in 2014. He was later sentenced in absentia by the Ukrainian judiciary to twelve years in prison for calls for a coup and other crimes.