Russia's secret service has arrested two men in connection with a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Vladimir Putin after the March 4 presidential elections, Channel One state television said today.

The station showed two men who said they were acting on the orders of Chechen warlord Doku Umarov. They said they prepared the attack in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa and were planning to carry it out in Moscow.

The station said three plotters came to Ukraine from the United Arab Emirates via Turkey with "clear instructions from representatives of Doku Umarov."

One of the men died in a blast in early January that prompted the investigation, the report said.

"They told us that first you come to Odessa and learn how to make bombs," the station showed a man identified as Ilya Pyanzin as saying.

"And then later, in Moscow, you will stage attacks against commercial objects, with the subsequent assassination attempt against Putin," the man said.

The state television footage, which was apparently shot in Ukraine, showed a video of Putin getting into his car being played on the laptop computer belonging to the second arrested man, identified as Adam Osmayev.

"This was done so that we had an understanding of how he was protected," Osmayev said.

"The end goal was to come to Moscow and to try to stage an assassination attempt against premier Putin," Osmayev said.

"The deadline was after the election of the Russian president," Osmayev said.