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The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced today that they thwarted assassination attempts targeting two prominent Russian journalists: Margarita Simonyan (editor-in-chief of RT and Rossiya Segodnya) and Ksenia Sobchack.

"The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, together with the Investigative Committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, prevented the preparation of the assassination of Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the RT channel and the international information agency Rossiya Segodnya, by the Ukrainian special services," the FSB said in a statement, adding that "according to the information we have, the assassination of Ksenia Sobchak was also being prepared." 

Members of Paragraph-88, the Ukrainian neo-Nazi group, who were conducting reconnaissance near the journalists' places of work and residence were apprehended by the Russian Federal Security Services. 

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This comes as July 3 saw another assassination attempt on the head of the Crimea Republic Sergey Aksyonov was thwarted by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), a statement by the intelligence agency said.

The federal agency said a Russian citizen working for Kiev stands behind the failed attack.

"An assassination attempt on the head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, organized by the Ukrainian special services, has been thwarted ... A citizen of Russia, born in 1988, who was recruited by the Ukrainian Security Council and took a course in reconnaissance and subversive activities on the territory of Ukraine, including training in mine blasting, was detained," the FSB said in a statement.

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