Garry Kasparov on assassination target list? What the US and Lithuania told him

Paris: Kremlin critic and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov said Thursday that US and Lithuanian security services had warned him and his longtime associate Ivan Tyutrin that their lives were in danger and advised them to take security precautions.

“News that I, along with my longtime associate and co-founder of the Free Russia Forum, Ivan Tyutrin, are on a list of assassination targets did not come as a surprise to me, but it is nevertheless a shock,” Kasparov said on social media.

“Lithuanian and US security services informed us that our lives were in danger and that we should take precautionary measures. I did exactly that, and I will continue to do so in the future.”

Kasparov, 63, issued the statement after the US Department of Justice announced in mid-September that it had charged five alleged Russian intelligence agents with conspiring to carry out attacks and murders around the world, including in the United States.

According to the department, the group attempted this summer to have a “prominent Russian dissident” living in the US murdered. American authorities did not name the dissident, identifying him only as “Victim-1”.

One of the defendants is an officer of Russia’s FSB security service.

Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported Wednesday, citing sources close to Kasparov, that Russian agents had also plotted to kill him and former Russian lawmaker-turned-Kremlin critic Ilya Ponomaryov.

Kasparov, however, said he had not been explicitly told that he or Tyutrin were the individuals referred to in the US indictment.

“Neither Ivan nor I were explicitly told that we were the individuals whose names are concealed in the indictment against those accused of carrying out the assassination plot,” Kasparov said.

Kasparov and Tyutrin founded the Free Russia Forum in 2016. The organisation advocates support for the Ukrainian military and holds anti-war conferences.

Russia designated the forum an “undesirable organisation” in 2023 and added it to a list of “terrorist” organisations in 2025.

The alleged plot disclosed by US authorities appears to point to an expansion in the targeting of Russian dissidents and the alleged reach of Russian operations on Western soil. Russian security services have previously been accused of targeting Kremlin opponents across Europe.

The US Justice Department also said the Russian agents were seeking to have a target in Lithuania, identified only as “Victim-2”, murdered.

One of the alleged agents offered a US citizen $25,000 to kill “Victim-2”, including by “throwing a bottle of gasoline” at him or “sticking a knife” in him.

Speaking to AFP, Tyutrin, who lives in exile in Vilnius, said he did not know whether he was “Victim-2”.

He said, however, that Lithuanian authorities had warned him following the US announcement that “I needed to leave my home urgently and get rid of my car.”