Moscow court arrests alleged attempted assassins of Kremlin propagandist and TV presenter

A Russian court arrested seven members of the Russian Nazi extremist group NS/WP for allegedly plotting an assassination attempt on Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan and TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak, Russian state news agency TASS reported on July 15.

It was reported that of the seven detained, four are minors born in 2005 and 2006, the others are 18-year-old Mykhailo Balashov and 22-year-old Yehor Saveliev.

An unnamed NS/WP member told Russian independent media outlet The Insider that detainees were tortured a day before the official detention  and were forced to give false testimony.

After being tortured, the detainee allegedly said the order to kill Sobchak and Simonyan was received from the Ukrainian special services. Allegedly, for each successful killing, a reward of about $16,500 was promised.

“They are being electrocuted, strangled, one of them had his arm broken,” he said.

Earlier, it was reported that Russia’s Federal Security Service or FSB prevented an attempt to kill "two prominent journalists."

Margarita Simonian is the head of Russia Today, a Kremlin-backed international news site and TV channel seen as one of the key outlets of Russian propaganda worldwide. On public television apearances since the full-scale invasion, Simonian has repeatedly called for an escalation of Russia's war, including into an international nuclear exchange.

Ksenia Sobchak, daughter of the late Anatolii Sobchak, once mayor of St Petersburg and former boss of Vladimir Putin, positioned herself as a liberal in Russia, despite appearing herself frequently on state television and even being registered to run for president in 2018.