Ukraine’s security services said on Tuesday they had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other senior military and political figures. Two Ukrainian colonels accused of participating in the plot have been detained on suspicion of treason.
Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, the SBU, said in a statement that the plot had involved a network of agents – including the two colonels – led by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor agency to the KGB. According to the Ukrainian agency, agents working under Russian direction were tasked with identifying people close to Zelensky’s security team who could take him hostage and then kill him.
The agency’s statement said the other senior Ukrainian officials targeted in the plot included Vasyl Malyuk, head of the SBU, and General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency. The Ukrainian claims could not be independently verified.
This is not the first time that Ukraine has reported a possible assassination attempt on its top leaders. Zelensky himself said in an interview with an Italian television channel earlier this year that his security services had informed him of more than 10 such attempts.
Ukraine’s security services offered few details about previous assassination plans. But this time, the agency elaborated in its statement by describing how the Ukrainian officials were going to be killed.
The services said the two colonels accused in the plot belonged to the State Security Administration, which protects senior officials. They had been recruited before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to the statement, which identified three FSB members – Maxim Mishustin, Dmytro Perlin and Oleksiy Kornev – as leading the operation from Moscow.
The murder of General Budanov, according to the services, was planned to take place before Orthodox Easter, which was celebrated on May 5. The network of FSB agents in Ukraine was tasked with observing and transmitting information about General Budanov’s whereabouts, the Ukrainian security services said. Once his location was confirmed and communicated, he would have been the target of an attack with rockets and drones.
According to Ukraine’s security services and prosecutor general, one of the colonels received weapons for the attack, including attack drones, ammunition for a rocket launcher and antipersonnel mines. The colonel had to pass the weapons to other agents to carry out the attack, according to the Ukrainian statement.
General Budanov’s wife was poisoned late last year, according to the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, in an incident that sparked widespread speculation that Russia was stepping up its efforts to target Ukraine’s top leaders.
The SBU also reported last month that it had arrested, in cooperation with Polish security services, a Pole who it said had offered to spy for Russia as part of a plot to assassinate Zelensky.
Russia had no immediate comment on Tuesday’s allegations.