Ukraine updates: Kyiv says it foiled plot to kill Zelenskyy

Russian agents were targeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. the SBU says

Ukraine’s security service, SBU, says it has arrested several Russian agents who were plotting to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other government officials.

The SBU said the Russian network was working within the state guard service.

Here’s a look at the latest on Russia’s war in Ukraine on Tuesday, May 7.

Ukraine’s SBU says uncovers Russian assassination plot

Ukraine’s SBU State Security Service says it has caught Russian agents within the Ukrainian state guard service who were plotting to kill President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior government officials.

“Counterintelligence and SBU investigators thwarted the FSB’s (Russia’s security service) plans to eliminate the president of Ukraine and other representatives of the top military and political leadership,” the SBU said on Telegram.

A statement said that two colonels in the State Guard of Ukraine, which protects top officials, were arrested on suspicion of being involved in the plan.

Both were recruited to the service before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, according to the statement.

Zelenskyy said in 2022 there has been at least 10 attempts to assassinate him

The announcement comes a few days after Zelenskyy sacked Ilya Vityuk, the head of the SBU’s cybersecurity department, amid allegations of corruption.

Putin vows ‘victory’ for Russians at lavish inauguration

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Russians at his inauguration that “we will win” despite the challenges facing the country as it continues with its all-out invasion of Ukraine.

In remarks made as he embarked on an unprecedented fifth term as president, Putin said, “We will pass through this difficult period with dignity and become even stronger.”

He was apparently referring to the problems created by the sanctions packages the West has imposed on Russia for Moscow’s invasion.

The ceremony at the Kremlin was boycotted by the United States and a number of other Western countries due to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Putin, 71, won a landslide victory in March in elections that were considered neither free nor fair by most of the international community.

His most prominent opponent, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in an Arctic penal colony a month earlier, while other leading critics and opposition figures are in jail or have been forced to flee abroad.