Chechen man accused of plotting Vladimir Putin's assassination attacked and wife shot dead near Kiev

A Chechen man accused of plotting Russian President Vladimir Putin's assassination was injured while his Ukrainian wife was shot dead in an attack near Kiev, Ukrainian interior ministry officials said on Monday (30 October).

The incident took place on Monday when the car in which Adam Osmayev and his wife Amina Okuyeva were travelling was suddenly shot at multiple times by unknown assailants while crossing a railroad track on the outskirts of the capital city, interior ministry advisors Anton Gerashchenko and Zoryan Shkiryak said in separate posts on Facebook.

"Adam Osmayev was wounded but he will live. I just spoke to him by phone," Gerashchenko posted on Facebook.

The latest attack comes close on the heels of a scooter bombing in Kiev on Thursday (26 October), in which two people were killed and three wounded – including Ihor Mosiychuk, a member of the populist opposition Radical Party in Ukraine, who was seriously injured. Osmayev is believed to have had links with Mosiychuk. He had once worked for him in an advisory role, Reuters reported.

According to reports, the 30 October attack on Osmayev is the second attempt this year on his life. He had survived one murder attempt in Kiev earlier in June. It is believed that the attacks have been carried out by elements – so far unknown – from Russia's mainly Muslim Chechnya region.

Osmayev made headlines in 2012 when he was detained in the Ukrainian port of Odessa for plotting to assassinate Putin. Russian authorities had alleged that he was part of a plot by Islamist rebels to kill Putin with a bomb in central Moscow. He was held for two years in a prison but never extradited to Moscow.