Ukraine arrests two security officials over plot to assassinate Zelensky

Volodymyr Zelensky has been the target of several assassination plots – RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP

Ukraine’s intelligence service has arrested two senior officials who embedded themselves in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s security team with a plan to kill him.

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said the two Ukrainian colonels were secretly in the pay of Russia’s FSB security agency and planned the assassination as a “gift” to Vladimir Putin.

“Counter-intelligence 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,” the service said.

Ukraine’s security service released a series of images as they arrested two people

It also released nine photos on the Telegram social media service showing the two suspects being arrested, a rocket-propelled grenade, bomb-making equipment and an alleged Telegram conversation on assassination plans.

The SBU said both men worked for Ukraine’s State Security Service, the unit tasked with protecting top officials. It said the FSB had recruited them more than two years ago ahead of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The intelligence service said: “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 take the Head of State hostage and later kill him.”

It also said the double agents’ movements had been closely documented, including a trip to an unnamed Ukrainian region to pick up weapons and conversations with their FSB handler.

The arrested men were said to be senior members of President Zelensky’s security team

Senior Ukrainian officials have said Mr Zelensky has survived dozens of attacks on his life since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion in Feb 2022. He is constantly accompanied by heavily-armed bodyguards.

Major General Vasyl Malyuk, the SBU head, also said that the latest alleged assassination plot was planned to coincide with the inauguration on Tuesday of Putin as president of Russia 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.

One of the SBU photos shows a rocket-propelled grenade

Maj Gen Malyuk was also on the assassins’ hit list, as was Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. Last year, Ukrainian intelligence said the wife of Lieut Gen Budanov had been hospitalised after being poisoned by Russian agents.

Ukraine has also 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 on both civilian and military targets.

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