Europe

Ukraine says it caught agents for Russia plotting assassination of Volodymyr Zelenskiy

Plan to murder Ukrainian president is latest in series of attempt on his life since Russian invasion began

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the Financial Times in November 2022 that he had survived “several” attempted hits on his life since the start of the invasion. Photograph: Toms Kalnins/EPA

Isobel Koshiw in Kyiv and Christopher Miller
Tue May 7 2024 - 15:51

Ukraine has said it uncovered a network of Russian agents in the country who planned to assassinate president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, including two colonels who worked for the agency in charge of his security.

The Ukrainian domestic intelligence service (SBU) on Tuesday said the two were tasked by Moscow with finding people in Mr Zelenskiy’s security detail who would take the president hostage and later kill him.

The agency they worked for, known as the State Protection Service, oversees security for Ukraine’s president as well as ministers and other top officials.

One of the colonels, the SBU said, had purchased weapons and drones for the operation and was recorded in conversation with his handlers at the FSB, the Russian spy agency.

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The alleged conspiracy was the latest in a series of foiled Russian plots that Ukrainian authorities said were intended to kill or capture the president, since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It comes just weeks after Ukrainian and Polish authorities announced the arrest a Polish citizen accused of helping Russia’s military intelligence carry out such an assassination plot.

Mr Zelenskiy told the Financial Times in November 2022 that he had survived “several” attempts on his life since the start of the invasion. His chief of staff Andriy Yermak said that Russian sleeper agents had tried to storm the presidential office to capture or kill the head of state in the first hours of Moscow’s invasion.

[ Vladimir Putin begins fifth term as Russian leader ]

In addition to Mr Zelenskyy, the agents planned to kill the head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk, and the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov, as well as other high-ranking officials. Both officials have overseen bold operations using aerial and naval drones to attack energy infrastructure inside Russia and the country’s Black Sea fleet in Crimea.

The kill plan for Mr Budanov – set to take place before Easter, according to the SBU – was to target a building he was in with a rocket strike. A third Ukrainian man, separate from the colonels, was tasked with then attacking anyone who remained in the affected area with a drone. Then the Russians planned to use a second missile strike to destroy any traces of the drones, it said.

In a tapped conversations published by the SBU, the alleged FSB co-ordinator in Moscow, Dmitry Perlin, described the rocket-drone-rocket plot against Mr Budanov as a type of “sandwich”.

Mr Perlin told the third man recruited to help carry out the assassination that he must be at a certain spot by 7pm to have a visual of guests arriving at a house and that the FSB had already used the spot to spy and it was “safe”. Mr Perlin added that the man would receive upwards of $50,000 for the Budanov assassination.

“A limited number of people knew about our special operation, and I personally monitored its progress. The terrorist attack, which was supposed to be a gift to [Vladimir] Putin before the inauguration, was actually a failure of the Russian special services,” said Malyuk.

Instead, the plot was uncovered just as Mr Putin was being sworn in for a new six-year term as president. Speaking from within the gilded halls of the Kremlin, the Russian leader claimed that the “choice” between war and peace laid solely with the West.

The SBU said the FSB had recruited the Ukrainian colonels before Russia’s full-scale invasion, meeting one of the colonels in January 2022 in a neighbouring country more than once.

A spokesperson for the SBU said the colonels were detained on Sunday but declined to say how long they were under investigation prior to the arrest.

The suspects have been charged with treason under martial law and preparation of a terrorist act. They face life sentences if convicted of the crimes. The SPS, the Ukrainian equivalent of the US Secret Service, declined to comment. A statement on its website said it had worked with the SBU to expose the network. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024

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