The men planned to either kill, harm or kidnap the dissident, according to France's national prosecutor's office for counter-terrorism. The authority does not name the intended victim, but the well-known Russian regime critic Vladimir Osetjkin tells the news agency AFP that it is about him.
Osetjkin runs the legal organization Gulagu.net, which, among other things, has exposed abuse of power and serious abuses in Russian prisons. He was among the first to reveal that Russia's military recruited prison inmates for the war in Ukraine.
Osetjkin has been living in exile in France since 2015, where he has been granted political asylum.
All four arrested come from the Russian republic of Dagestan, according to a source for AFP. One of them has French citizenship.
