Ukraine’s security service said it has arrested two senior officials over a Russian plot to assassinate Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said its agents arrested two Ukrainian colonels working for Russia’s FSB security agency who planned the assassination as a “gift” to Vladimir Putin.
“Counterintelligence and SBU investigators disrupted the FSB’s plans to eliminate the president of Ukraine and other representatives of the highest military and political leadership of the state,” it said.
The SBU also released nine photos on the Telegram social media service showing the two suspects being arrested, a rocket-propelled grenade, bomb-making equipment and a Telegram conversation of alleged assassination plans.
It said both men worked for Ukraine’s State Security Service, which is tasked with protecting top officials, but that they had been recruited by the FSB specifically to kill Mr Zelensky.
“The SBU recorded both trips by a colonel to another region of Ukraine for drones and explosives, as well as the conversations with the potential perpetrator of the terrorist attack with the ‘curator’ from the FSB,” it said.
Senior Ukrainian officials have said Mr Zelensky has survived dozens of attacks on his life since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. He is constantly accompanied by bodyguards.
Vasyl Malyuk, the SBU head, said that the latest alleged assassination plot was planned to coincide with the inauguration on Tuesday of Putin as president for the fifth time.
“The terrorist attack, which was supposed to be a gift to Putin before the inauguration, was actually a failure of the Russian special services,” he said.
Ukraine has warned that traitors have infiltrated its security services and are trying to undermine its war against the Kremlin. There are regular arrests of people in Ukraine for giving information to Russia to coordinate missile attacks.
The SBU added that the two colonels it arrested for plotting to kill Mr Zelensky were recruited before the start of the war in Ukraine and had been monitored closely.
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