El Mundo reports Russian authorities plotted to kill former Russian lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov in the U.S.

Russian authorities spent several months planning to assassinate opposition figures Ilya Ponomarev and Garry Kasparov in the United States, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported.In the summer of 2026, U.S. authorities notified Kasparov that he was the target of an assassination plot and provided him with protection for the first time since he moved to New York in 2013, sources close to him said. The plot to kill Ponomarev was at an “even more advanced stage,” El Mundo reported.U.S. authorities uncovered a five-person group acting on Moscow’s orders. Its members recruited people to conduct surveillance and carry out killings. One recruited agent photographed two locations in Washington linked to Ponomarev. The group offered $1,000 to $1,500 to photograph the locations and $40,000 to carry out the killing. The plot fell apart when the would-be killer backed out, the newspaper reported.El Mundo also reported plans for a third killing: the intended victim was to be ambushed in Vilnius and stabbed to death or doused with gasoline and set on fire. El Mundo did not name the intended victim. It suggested that Vladimir Kara-Murza may have been the target but gave no details.Two members of the group allegedly paid a U.S. citizen about $200 to photograph a Russian opposition figure’s home in Vilnius, El Mundo reported. The newspaper said Ivan Tyutrin, co-founder of the Free Russia Forum, had been on the group’s radar since 2024 and was receiving protection at the time. Police warned him again in recent months that he had become a target. However, the case files do not specify whether he was the opposition figure the group planned to kill in Vilnius. The fee for that killing was $25,000.The list of potential targets also includes Bashkir activist Ruslan Gabbasov, founder of the Committee of the Bashkir National Movement Abroad, El Mundo reported. In 2025, he discovered a tracking device on his car, and Lithuanian prosecutors subsequently uncovered a plot to kill him. In April 2026, the news outlet Delfi reported that a 55-year-old man had been detained in Greece on suspicion of plotting to kill two people in Lithuania. Gabbasov may have been one of the intended victims. Gabbasov confirmed that Lithuania’s intelligence services had uncovered a plot to kill him.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.