French police arrest four in alleged plot targeting exiled Russian activist Vladimir Osechkin

Police in France detained four people suspected of a plot targeting exiled Russian rights activist Vladimir Osechkin, who exposes abuses in Russian prisons, France's national anti-terror prosecution office said on Thursday evening.

The General Directorate for Internal Security, France's counter-espionage and counterterror intelligence (DGSI), has been the leading the investigation, the anti-terror prosecution office said.

It said the four men were detained on Monday but gave no details about their nationalities, any possible motives for allegedly targeting Osechkin or whether the men are suspected of links to foreign spy services.

Osechkin founded Gulagu.net, a rights group for prisoners in the notoriously tough Russian prison system.

Osechkin has long suspected that he could be targeted for possible assassination because of his work, even in exile in Biarritz, the beach resort town on southwest France’s coast where he lives.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Osechkin said there have been repeated threats on his life since 2022, most recently in February this year.

He believes that he remains at risk although French police carried out arrests in the wake of those death threats, adding that he and his family are often moved to safe houses when new threats emerge.

"Those who were arrested are just a part of the overall picture, they are part of a big team," he said.

Osechkin sought political asylum in France after fleeing Russia under pressure from authorities over his prison activism.

His group routinely publishes videos and accounts of alleged torture and corruption in Russian prisons and he was among the first to reveal that Russia’s military was recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine.

Gulagu.net also helped bring Russian fugitive paratrooper Pavel Filatiev to France in 2022.

Filatiev served in the Ukraine war before being injured and later published accounts online of what he saw, accusing the Russian military leadership of betraying their own troops out of incompetence and corruption.

The DGSI is one of the French agencies that have been investigating what authorities say is a sustained effort by Russia and Russia-directed proxies to destabilise France with cyberattacks and other acts, part of a broader alleged campaign of Russian sabotage and hybrid warfare targeting European allies of Ukraine.