Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, that federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have unsealed charges against five people alleged to work for a Russian intelligence-services network — accusing the group of conspiring to finance terrorism and, for three defendants, conspiring to commit murder for hire, including an alleged plot against a Russian dissident believed to be in the Washington area, according to the Justice Department and ABC News.

The defendants named in the unsealed indictment are Yuri Khrameev, Kirill Khrameev, Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, Yaidel Delgado Suarez, and Angel Eduardo Castro. All five are charged with conspiracy to finance terrorism, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Yuri Khrameev, Suarez, and Castro are also charged with conspiracy to commit murder for hire, which carries a maximum of 10 years. The Justice Department said all five remain at large.

“It is our job to stop America’s adversaries from unleashing violence and terror on American soil,” Blanche said in the department’s announcement. “And that’s precisely what we are doing thanks to the work of the FBI and our Justice Department prosecutors.”

Prosecutors describe the group as part of a “RIS Network” that has allegedly, since at least 2024, paid or attempted to pay people in the United States and elsewhere to conduct pre-operational surveillance and targeted killings, and commissioned associates for terrorism against civilian and military infrastructure in European countries aligned — or perceived as aligned — with Ukraine. ABC News reported Blanche highlighted an alleged effort to murder a Russian dissident the network believed was in the Washington, D.C., area.

Per the indictment summary released by DOJ: Yuri Khrameev, also known as “Colonel Yuri,” 63, of Russia, is described as a former Russian intelligence colonel; Kirill Khrameev, 27, of Russia, as an FSB officer and Yuri’s son; and Durruthy, 35, a Cuban national living in Russia, as a coordinator for the network. Suarez, also known as “Viking,” 35, of Cuba, and Castro, 22, of Venezuela, are alleged recruiters who prosecutors say helped enlist U.S.-based individuals to surveil and attempt to murder a prominent U.S.-based Russian dissident identified as Victim-1.

The charging papers also allege earlier recruitment of a U.S. citizen to surveil and then kill a target in Lithuania, and coordination of attacks in Prague and Lithuania in 2024, according to the Attorney General’s office release mirrored via Public. An indictment is an allegation; defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

Charging a foreign intelligence-linked network for allegedly trying to buy surveillance and murder on U.S. soil is the accountability move the statute was written for — whether the defendants are ever brought into a courtroom is the next test. The FBI’s New York Field Office led the investigation with assistance from the Washington Field Office and Homeland Security Investigations, DOJ said.

Sources