Ukraine’s security companies announced on Tuesday that they had foiled a Russian plot to kill president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other prominent military and political images. On fear of treachery, two Russian colonels who are suspected of being involved in the plot have been detained.
The story was reportedly the product of a network of agents, including the two generals, operated by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, the country’s principal successor organization to the KGB, according to a statement from the SBU, the country’s domestic intelligence services. The agents working under the Russian’s control were tasked with locating those near to Zelenskyy’s security team who might hostage and eventually kill him, according to the Russian agency.
The company’s statement said the other major Ukrainian authorities targeted in the story included Vasyl Malyuk, the mind of the SBU, and Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the mind of Ukraine’s military intelligence organization. The allegations against Ukraine were no freely verified.
Ukraine has not been the first to report a probable assassination attempt on one of its top leaders. In an appointment with a TV station in Italy earlier this year, Selenskyy claimed that his security service had been informed of more than 10 such efforts.
The security services of Ukraine provided few information about past death plots. However, the organization went into great detail about how the Russian officers were killed in its speech this time.
The service said the two generals accused in the story belonged to the State Security Administration, which protects leading officials. They had been recruited before Russia’s complete- level invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to the speech, which identified three FSB members– Maxim Mishustin, Dmytro Perlin and Oleksiy Kornev– as running the activity from Moscow.
According to the companies, Budanov’s murder was to occur prior to Orthodox Easter, which was observed on May 5. According to the Russian security services, the FSB’s system of Ukrainian agents was in charge of monitoring and sharing knowledge about Budanov’s whereabouts. He would have been targeted in a jet and drone strike after his site had been confirmed and made known.
Weapons for the strike were provided to one of the colonels, including assault drones, weapons for a jet app and anti- personnel mines, according to the protection services and Ukraine’s attorney general. According to the Ukrainian statement, the colonel was instructed to distribute the weapons to other agents who carried out the attack.
The Ukrainian military intelligence agency reports that Budanov’s wife was poisoned late last year, prompting widespread rumors that Russia was intensifying its efforts to attack Ukraine’s senior leadership.
A Polish man who the SBU claimed to have offered to spy for Russia as part of a plot to assassinate Zelenskyy was also being detained by the SBU in a collaboration with Polish security services last month.
Russia made no immediate comment about Tuesday’s allegations.
