What looks like a conventional battlefield war now has a far darker, quieter side. Away from trenches and missiles, a covert campaign of targeted killings is unfolding stretching from Kyiv and Moscow to cities as far away as Madrid. And it’s becoming more professional, more frequent, and far more global.
The arrest of Ross David Cutmore, a British national detained in Ukraine, pulled the curtain back on this hidden conflict. According to Ukrainian investigators, Cutmore allegedly helped import and distribute weapons later used in the killings of three high-profile Ukrainians: activist Demian Hanul and politicians Iryna Farion and Andriy Parubiy.
If true, this wasn’t just one man going rogue it revealed how Russia increasingly relies on locals, migrants, and criminal intermediaries instead of elite intelligence officers to eliminate enemies.
“Modern assassinations no longer require a James Bond just a delivery app, a burner phone, and someone desperate enough to say yes.”
Russia’s outsourced killing strategy
Data from ACLED, a respected global conflict monitoring organization, shows that between 2023 and August 2025, Russia was linked to nine attempted or successful assassinations inside Ukraine. The targets weren’t random. Many were nationalist figures or intelligence officials — selections that conveniently support the Kremlin’s narrative of “fighting extremism.”
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This strategy reflects a limitation as much as a choice: Russia appears either unable or unwilling to deploy professional hit teams consistently, instead outsourcing risk to people with weaker loyalties and stronger financial motivations.
You can explore ACLED’s detailed conflict tracking here:
https://acleddata.comUkraine strikes back — and then some
Ukraine, however, has responded with remarkable effectiveness. Research suggests Kyiv is now winning this shadow war, both in scale and sophistication.
Late 2024 marked a turning point. By mid-2025, Ukrainian assassination attempts inside Russia had already exceeded the annual totals of 2022, 2023, and 2024 combined. The focus shifted from loud propagandists to the engineers, generals, and planners behind Vladimir Putin’s war effort.
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Notable cases include:
Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, head of Russia’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons unit, killed by a remotely detonated device hidden in an electric scooter.
Mikhail Shatsky, a missile and drone engineer, shot dead days earlier.
Gen Yaroslav Moskalik, a senior general staff figure, killed by a car bomb in April 2025.
ACLED has also recorded apparent suicide bombings inside Russia — including the deaths of Armen Sarkisian, founder of the Arbat battalion, and Zaur Gurtsiev, linked to the brutal bombardment of Mariupol. In at least one case, the courier may not have known he was carrying an explosive.
That’s not espionage — that’s nightmare fuel.
Long reach, long memory
Ukraine’s intelligence capabilities have proven durable even in territories Russia has controlled for over a decade. The 2018 killing of Alexander Zakharchenko, a Donetsk warlord, was an early signal. Since 2022, at least five major assassinations have taken place in Luhansk alone, including Igor Kornet, the Russian-installed interior minister.
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In December 2024, Ukrainian operatives also killed the head of Olenivka prison in Donetsk — the site where dozens of Ukrainian POWs died in a 2022 blast.
The quiet war that isn’t quiet anymore
This isn’t just intelligence tit-for-tat. It’s a systematic expansion of the conflict into a realm where plausible deniability, technology, and human vulnerability intersect. No press conferences. No uniforms. Just explosions before sunrise and investigations that end in silence.
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The battlefield hasn’t disappeared — it’s multiplied.
And if history is any guide, this shadow war won’t stay in the shadows for long.
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