Special agents 'foil bomb plot to kill Putin after election'

Russian and Ukrainian secret services claimed today that they had foiled a plot to assassinate prime minister Vladimir Putin.

State television reported that members of a terror cell linked to a Chechen rebel leader were arrested after an accidental explosion while they were preparing bombs in the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odessa.

It is claimed that the gang planned to blow up Mr Putin immediately after the presidential vote on Sunday, which he is clear favourite to win.

Special agents swooped after a police investigation into the blast at a rented flat on January 4, in which one of the suspects is believed to have died.

A Kremlin spokesman confirmed the report but did not comment further. News of the plot comes a day after a 30,000-strong protest in Moscow against Mr Putin. It is believed the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, was not aware of the plot until the blast and the Ukrainian security service said it did not make any arrests until this month.

State media claimed two of the alleged members of the group arrived in Ukraine from the United Arab Emirates via Turkey with instructions from Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov. As well as the Chechen who died in the explosion, Kazakhstani Ilya Pyanzin was wounded.

Pyanzin led the investigators to their contact in Odessa, Adam Osmayev, a Chechen who had previously lived in London. In a televised confession from his cell Osmayev, whose face was covered in cuts and bruises, said: "Our goal was to go to Moscow and try to kill Prime Minister Putin. Our deadline was after the Russian presidential election."

The report claimed Osmayev had led the investigators to a cache of explosives near a Moscow avenue that Mr Putin uses to travel between his office and a suburban residence. A Russian security officer said the suspects also had videos of Mr Putin's convoy.

Pyanzin was shown saying that they were to sabotage economic facilities and then try to kill Mr Putin. Opinion polls show he is all but certain to win a first-round victory in the presidential vote despite a series of protests in Moscow.

Yesterday protesters stood side by side around the 10-mile Moscow Garden ring road wearing the white ribbons that symbolise the biggest opposition protests since Mr Putin rose to power 12 years ago.