Since the beginning of June, he also started posting photos from Russia.
What the FSB reported
The Russian Investigative Committee and the FSB reported the detention of N. Cociu on Tuesday. Their reports state that the Moldovan citizen was detained in the Astrakhan region. He has been charged with terrorism, attempted murder, and illegal arms trafficking.
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According to the version of the Investigative Committee and the FSB, N. Cociu was allegedly recruited by Ukrainian special services in 2025 through a social network and supposedly agreed to kill a “high-ranking military officer” in Russia for 70 thousand US dollars. According to the reports from the security agencies, this March the Moldovan citizen underwent shooting training at a range near Kyiv, and in June he arrived in Russia.
What happened
Last Thursday, in the village of Probuždenije in the Saratov region of Russia, an unknown person riding a motorcycle shot at an officer of the Russian Aerospace Forces. One bullet hit the face, another the torso. The injured person was hospitalized but survived.
Officially, the Russian authorities did not disclose the target of the assassination attempt, but Telegram channels reported that it was Major General Nikolai Varpakhovich – commander of the 22nd Aviation Division of the Russian Armed Forces, who was accused by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) on August 31 in a case related to the attack on Kyiv’s “Okhmatdyt” hospital.
According to the Investigative Committee and the FSB, after the attack N. Cociu was allegedly supposed to return to Moldova. However, as stated in the reports, he was detained by security forces while leaving Russia.
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The security forces also released video footage of N. Cociu’s detention and interrogation. The detainee’s face is blurred in the videos. The footage also shows N. Cociu’s passport, which displays his birth year and how his name and surname are written in Latin letters – Nicolae Cociu.
Who he is
The portal “Agentstvo” found Nicolae Cociu’s profile on a social network. In February 2024, a video was posted there in which N. Cociu answers questions from the fighting organization “Balkan Ultimate Fighting” (BUF PVP), active in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The video shows a mole on the inner side of the left forearm of the person answering. The same mole in the same place is visible in the video of the person detained by the Russian security forces.
“Agentstvo” also compared N. Cociu’s voice from the BUF PVP video posted on the social network and the detainee’s voice in the Russian security forces’ recording, using two AI-based services. The analysis shows that the same person speaks in both videos. One of the comparative analysis services found a 74% similarity, with the match threshold being 70%.
Based on the recordings on his profile, N. Cociu participated in kickboxing competitions in Romania in May and October 2022, as well as in January 2023. In February 2024, he was introduced as a fighter of the mixed martial arts organization BUF PVP.
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