Kasparov Says U.S. and Lithuania Warned Him of a Russian Assassination Plot

Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion and one of the Kremlin's best-known critics, said on Wednesday that security services in the United States and Lithuania have warned him his life is in danger after a suspected plot against Russian opposition figures living abroad.

Kasparov, 63, who lives in New York, wrote about the warning in a post on Substack. He said that he and others had been told by security services in both countries to take precautions. He said neither he nor Ivan Tyutrin, an opposition activist based in Lithuania, had been told they were explicit targets.

"I will not stop and I will not hide," Kasparov wrote. "I will continue to do everything I can to rally the free world against Putin's murderous dictatorship."

The warning follows a case U.S. authorities announced last month. Prosecutors charged five people over alleged plots involving Russian intelligence to assassinate two opposition figures, one in the United States and one in Lithuania. According to the charges, the plotters paid recruits to carry out surveillance on both targets. The Justice Department did not publicly name the targets.

Unconfirmed media reports have named the possible targets as Kasparov; Ilya Ponomaryov, a dissident who is based in Ukraine but travels regularly to the United States; and Tyutrin. Kasparov did not confirm that he was one of the two people the indictment describes.

The Kremlin said it saw no reason to comment on the American allegations in the absence of what it called credible evidence and facts. Russia has previously denied conducting such plots on foreign soil, even in cases where Western governments have attributed killings and attempted killings to Russian agents.

Kasparov left Russia after years as an opposition organizer and has lived in exile for more than a decade. He has been a vocal advocate for Ukraine and for tougher sanctions on Moscow, and remains one of the most prominent Russian voices abroad calling for a harder line against Moscow.

Cases like this have a long history. Western governments have blamed Russian agents for the 2018 nerve-agent poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Britain and for other attacks on Kremlin opponents abroad, and Moscow has denied involvement each time. The U.S. case is notable because it describes paid local recruits doing surveillance, a method that lets intelligence services keep their own officers at a distance.

The episode comes as Russian threats toward NATO are also escalating. This week Moscow warned the alliance that it would use its entire arsenal, including nuclear weapons, if it tried to blockade the Kaliningrad enclave. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte replied that Russia should stop its nuclear threats.