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KYIV — Ukraine’s security service said Tuesday it had foiled a plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by undercover Ukrainian security officials who were working for Russia.
Two unnamed colonels from the Ukrainian State Security Department, the SBU — the main organization protecting top officials including Zelenskyy — were part of a group of covert agents helping Russia’s security service, the FSB, to plot the assassination, Kyiv said.
The colonels were arrested and Kyiv said the conspiracy included plans to also murder SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk and Military Intelligence boss Kyrylo Budanov.
Zelenskyy has previously said he has survived more than 10 assassination attempts. “But it is the first time such a high-ranking official of the state security department has become [the] enemy’s moles,” Artem Dehtiarenko, SBU spokesman, told POLITICO.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been carrying out a full-scale invasion of Ukraine for more than two years. Since the start, Russian officials and security services have launched intelligence operations against Ukraine, aiming to delegitimize and overthrow Zelenskyy and his government, while sowing panic among Ukraine’s troops and population who are exhausted by the war.
Both colonels were detained by Ukraine’s security service. If found guilty in court, they face life in prison for plotting a terror attack and state treason.
“One of the tasks of the FSB intelligence network was to search for executors among the military close to the protection of the president, who could first take him hostage and later kill him,” the SBU press service said in a statement.
Besides Zelenskyy, a group of FSB agents including the defector colonels were planning to assassinate spymaster Budanov, Kyiv said.
In that operation, a covert agent in Ukraine was supposed to track Budanov’s movements and pass the information to Russian operatives from the FSB, it continued.
The statement detailed how the Russians were planning to strike a building with Budanov in it with a missile and then kill those who survived with drones. One of the state security department colonels was providing weapons to the FSB covert agents — FPV drones, RPG-7 charges, as well as MON-90 anti-personnel mines — according to the SBU.
“A limited number of people knew about our special operation, and I monitored its progress,” said Malyuk, the SBU chief who was targeted, after the plot was foiled. “The terrorist attack was supposed to be a gift to Putin before the inauguration. We will continue to work ahead of time so that every traitor receives the well-deserved court sentences.”
Although Russian officials have said in the United Nations that the Kremlin has no plans to kill Zelenskyy, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and current deputy head of the Russian Security Council, has called to assassinate the Ukrainian leader several times.
Recently he posted a cartoon with bullets hitting Zelenskyy as a greeting card to celebrate May 1 International Labor Day.
