Russia is probing an alleged plot to kill Putin after getting a tip about a conversation in a karaoke bar, report says

• Russia is looking for a man who said he was ordered to kill Putin, per Telegram channel VChK-OGPU.
• Mikhail Yurchenko reportedly told authorities that a man in a karaoke bar told him about the assignment.

Russian authorities are probing an alleged plot to kill President Vladimir Putin after getting a tip about a conversation in a karaoke bar, a new report said.

Telegram channel VChK-OGPU reported that a man, identified as Mikhail Yurchenko, called Russia's Ministry for Internal Affairs to tell them about the conversation he had with another man in a bar.

VChK-OGPU shares news and updates from Russia, and claims to get its information from sources in Russia's police and military agencies.

The report said the man told Yurchenko he had an order to "remove" Putin and showed him a red service identification card, according to The Daily Beast's translation. It is not clear what agency the ID suggested the man worked for.

Russian security forces have spent days looking for the man, the report on Wednesday said.

Telegram is a popular app in Russia, used by officials as well as war bloggers and media personalities who share updates on domestic news and the invasion of Ukraine, as well as misinformation and propaganda.

Yurchenko told ministry officials that he met the man in a karaoke club, named Honey, in the city of Chekhov, south of Moscow, the Telegram report said.

They then had a long conversation "about the war and future life in Russia," he said, and that was when the man told him about his assignment.

Yurchenko didn't push back and instead changed the topic, according to The Daily Beast's translation. But he worried for days and decided to report what had happened, the Telegram report said.

The bar is popular with employees of various Russian agencies, according to the Telegram report.

Putin is said to be paranoid that he will be assassinated.

One of his former security officers said in September that Putin is so paranoid that he has armed divers looking for would-be assassins on his private beach and that he deliberately gives fake travel information to his own bodyguards.

Ukraine's top military intelligence official said in May 2022 that Putin had recently survived an assassination attempt.