The Russian special services have moved to a new phase of the hybrid war in Ukraine – political terrorism, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleksandr Turchynov said commenting the reports about the prevention of the assassination of member of the parliamentary committee on legislative support of law enforcement agencies in Ukraine MP Anton Gerashchenko.

"Preliminary information suggests that the attack was related to his [Gerashchenko's] professional activities and exposure of Russians involved in crimes in the occupied territory of Ukraine," Turchynov was quoted by the press service of the National Security and Defense Council on Monday.

The NSDC secretary stressed that this is not the only case of terrorist activity organized by Russian special services on the Ukrainian territory.

According to him, in order to organize terrorist attacks, Russian secret services create intelligence network of criminals and militants, who are given the task to eliminate the political and public figures, representatives of the media in order to create the atmosphere of fear, create chaos and destabilize the situation in Ukraine, to break the willingness of Ukrainians to resist Russian military.

He laid the responsibility for the involvement of special services into the organization of terrorist activities on "the political leadership of the Russian Federation, which has turned its country into a center of world terrorism."

As reported, on Friday, SBU said it prevented an assassination attempt on Gerashchenko, saying Russian intelligence agencies were involved in it.