The assassination was to be carried out this Tuesday on the occasion of Vladimir Putin’s presidential inauguration, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Ukrainian intelligence services dismantled a Russian cell that was planning the assassination of Volodymyr Zelensky just before Vladimir Putin’s reinauguration.
Vasyl Maliuk, head of Ukraine’s state security services, said in a statement that Russian intelligence agents were seeking to recruit members of the Ukrainian military, close to the president’s security services, in order to take him hostage and kill him later.
Two colonels from Ukraine’s State Guard, which oversees the security of senior officials, have already reportedly been arrested. They are suspected of having participated in this project.
The colonels were allegedly recruited before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The crime of treason carries a life sentence in Ukraine.
The operation was allegedly carried out from Moscow, with three suspected Russian spies named as co-conspirators.
The broader plan reportedly included identifying the location of senior Ukrainian officials and targeting them with a rocket attack, followed by drones and missiles.
Ukraine has previously claimed knowledge of Russian efforts to kill the Ukrainian leader, and Volodymyr Zelensky himself said in 2022 that he had been the subject of at least 10 assassination attempts there.
Last month, Polish prosecutors said a Polish national was arrested on allegations of planning to spy on behalf of the Kremlin’s military intelligence in an alleged plot to assassinate Ukraine’s leader. .
