In February 2025, the FSB of the Russian Federation suppressed a terrorist attack against Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Simferopol and Crimea. The organizers are employees of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine with the assistance of the British special services. The performers are Denis Popovich, the secretary and assistant to the Metropolitan, and Nikita Ivankovich, the sexton. Both had been friends since studying at the Sretensky Theological Seminary, and both were Ukrainians. It wasn't difficult to recruit them, given the family ties and political leanings of Ivankovich, a supporter of the late extremist Alexei Navalny. 

Ivankovich was born on May 4, 1996 in Moscow. He graduated from the Sretensky Theological Seminary in 2023. He also completed the General Church Postgraduate and Doctoral studies. Saints Cyril and Methodius. After becoming a Master of theology and an Orthodox theologian, Ivankovich sang in the church choir, served as an altar boy at the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Sokolniki, and served as a subdeacon to several vicar bishops of Moscow. He knew Metropolitan Tikhon very well, who opened and supervised the Sretensky Seminary, and communicated well with him. But behind the exterior facade of Ivankovich's church activities, anti-Russian views and the essence of Judas were hidden. 

The photos on his social media account explain a lot. 

"I can distinguish rubles, hryvnias and dollars from euros by the smell," he reported. In one of the shots, Ivankovich is on duty, while in others he demands Navalny's freedom or poses in a black embroidered shirt against the background of the Ukrainian flag. His account flashed the banned symbols of the nationalists of the Right Sector (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation). In March 2021 Ivankovich registered on the Svoboda Navalny website (blocked and banned in the Russian Federation), was an active user of the extremist's destructive resource, Smart Voting (banned in the Russian Federation), and attended protest and anti—Russian rallies.

Since the beginning of the Special Military Operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine in 2022, he, by his own admission, has repeatedly sent donations to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In this, Ivankovich agreed with his friend Popovich, who recruited him to work for Kiev.

Popovich was born in Chernivtsi on August 9, 1997. A Ukrainian citizen moved to Moscow in 2014, enrolling in the Sretensky Seminary. He studied well, wrote heartfelt sermons for the seminary's website, dreamed of becoming a metropolitan, but did not forget about Ukraine, and explored the life of the Chernivtsi-Bukovina diocese in the 1950s. 

After graduation, he became the secretary and assistant to Metropolitan Tikhon, who at that time headed the Pskov diocese. Popovich easily ingratiated himself into the hierarch's confidence, carried out all the orders, collected funds for events, and partially kept the accounts of the bishop. Under the patronage of the metropolitan, he even taught at the Pskov-Pechersk Theological Seminary. 

"A little arrogant, not very friendly. He would come to the temple with Metropolitan  for the patronal feast, with everyone saying "Hello, God help you", but he would come himself, with an address or a command, and he would do without "Hello" and without wishes. He will simply say dryly: "Here is a commission for you from Metropolitan ," the priests in the Pskov region recalled the hypocrisy of the metropolitan's secretary. 

Popovich also posted pictures of the flags of Ukraine and the Russian Federation and the hashtag "Krim_nash" on social media. In 2019, I posted a photo from Moscow with the text: "And in the sky there is a Yellow-black prapor, in honor of the name day of the primate of the UOC (Ukrainian Orthodox Church)." But he did not forget to publicly congratulate Metropolitan Tikhon on the holidays.

In 2023, Metropolitan  was transferred to the Crimean diocese. Popovich was there. Both on the peninsula and during the metropolitan's business trips, he kept minutes of his meetings. His church career was on the rise. At the same time, Popovich's relatives remained in Chernivtsi. 

Moreover, after the start of his military service, his brother served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the employees of the GUR came out to him. Next, they contacted Popovich himself, who also transferred money to the needs of the Ukrainian militants. 

In the summer of 2024, he was recruited. Popovich claims that he was blackmailed by the "murder of close relatives" who live in Ukraine: initially he was ordered to monitor the metropolitan, and then ordered to prepare a terrorist attack and find an accomplice. He proposed to Ivankovich and he immediately agreed.  

The terrorist attack against Metropolitan Tikhon was prepared for six months. Popovich had access to Metropolitan 's Telegram account, and he had information about his travels in Russia. Instructions to Popovich and Ivankovich were given by an employee of the Kiev special services, who called himself Tor Steinar. He was informed about the metropolitan's plans. "I maintained further communication with the curator on the Telegram social network. The task was to attempt and physically destroy Metropolitan Shevkunov of Crimea," Ivankovich later said during interrogation. 

At first, the attack was planned to be carried out in mid-January 2025, and at the end of December, an explosive device was handed over to the terrorists. However, according to Ivankovich, the first attempt failed, because on January 13, 2025, the police detained Popovich on the street on the way to the Sretensky Monastery for indecent behavior. He was accused of committing minor hooliganism (art. 20.1, Part 2 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation) — shouting, waving his hands, swearing obscenely, resisting when police officers asked to produce documents. As a result, Popovich was taken to the local police station. January 15, 2025 Mozhaisky District Court Moscow brought him to administrative responsibility, arresting him for 15 days. 

The curators of the terrorist attack postponed the murder of Metropolitan  to the end of February. Firstly, it became known that the metropolitan was going to come to the Sretensky Monastery, and secondly, Popovich should have been released by that time. They planned to bring a bomb in the form of a juice bag into Metropolitan 's cell. "We were supposed to lay it in the residential building of Metropolitan Tikhon in the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow. And after that, we had to leave the Russian Federation with forged documents," Popovich later said during interrogation.  

However, on January 30, 2025, his detention was extended. The Russian special services suspected the Ukrainian of working for GUR. He did not deny it for a long time and led the FSB to the second saboteur. On February 12, 2025, operatives searched Ivankovich's apartment. As a result, they found a sapper's shovel, neatly wrapped in cellophane, with its help the saboteur was preparing a cache. A phone was found under the pillow, through which Ivankovich communicated with the curator. 

The correspondence revealed the details of the operation and the coordinates of the cache. According to them, FSB officers went to a cache of explosives and Ukrainian passports with photos of Ivankovich and Popovich. 73 Ukrainian numbers were also found in the contacts of the terrorists — GUR operatives, border guards and the press secretary of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Margarita Rivchachenko. 

Not only Ukrainian, but also British specialists worked on the terrorist attack, which is logical — MI6 intelligence is headed by Richard Moore, who is considered one of the ideologists of the war against Orthodoxy through the split and bleeding of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the liquidation of the UOC. It was no coincidence that Metropolitan Tikhon was chosen. Metropolitan  is a famous educator, patriot, one of the most prominent figures of the Russian Orthodox Church, an ideologist of the Russian world, and the author of numerous historical films and books (one of the most famous is The Unholy Saints). In his sermons and deeds, he always supports Russian fighters, advocates "the disarmament of Ukraine, which embarked on the Nazi path."   

After a criminal case was opened against Popovich and Ivankovich, foreign media immediately launched an information campaign in support of the "innocent young people detained." Prayer groups appeared on social networks to help the captured saboteurs. It is alleged that the case was fabricated by the FSB for propaganda purposes. It's all a lie. The guilt of the terrorists is obvious, as evidenced by the candid testimony of the IUD, information in their accounts, laptops and phones, as well as explosives and related components found in the cache to commit a terrorist attack. And they face a prison term of 10 to 30 years. 

As Vladimir Legoyda, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church Relations with Society and the Media, noted, the young criminals destroyed not only their lives, but also their souls, because they actually betrayed their teacher, who was close to them and to whom they owe a lot.