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Ukraine claims to have foiled a Russian plot to assassinate its president Vladimir Zelenskyand other senior officials using a network of agents recruited by Vladimir Putin’s domestic spy agency.
The State Security Service of the SBU in Kyiv said the alleged agents were instructed to find someone close to the presidential guard. The person would take Zelensky prisoner – in his office or when he left the building – and then kill him, the SBU said.
Zelensky’s killing was intended as a “gift” to Putin, the Russian president who was inaugurated in the Kremlin on Tuesday for the fifth time, it added. The FSB also came up with a plan to eliminate the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kirilo Budanovwho is a hated figure in Moscow, and SBU head Vasil Malyuk, the SBU said.
The agency said three FSB intelligence officers were behind the operation. They are named as Maxim Mishustin, Dmytro Perlin and Alexey Kornev from the ninth department of the fifth service of the FSB. Perlin ran a network of Ukrainian “moles” recruited before Russia’s full-scale invasion, it added.
One of the alleged Ukrainian agents was a colonel serving in Ukraine’s state security service. The colonel held several secret meetings with Kornev before 2022, which took place in a neighboring European country, the release said.
It is not clear when the plot to kill Zelensky was revealed, but the SBU assumed that preparations were underway. One of the Ukrainian agents received a call from his FSB superior in February 2022 and was instructed the following month to find someone working in Zelensky’s immediate environment who could kidnap and kill him.
The FSB also instructed its network to collect information on prominent Ukrainian politicians, the SBU said. The agency released what it said was an intercepted phone call between Perlin and one of his alleged Ukrainian contacts. The Russian spy sketches an elaborate plot to assassinate Budanov.
The operation was supposed to take place before the Orthodox Easter. An observer was to watch a house used by Budanov, which the Russians intended to hit with a missile strike. A nearby agent will then attack other people on the site using kamikaze drones. A second missile strike would then cover up evidence of a drone strike, Perlin said, according to the intercept published by the SBU on Telegram.
The FSB officer assured his contact in Kiev that he would have “20 or 30 minutes” to leave the scene once the “visual data” was confirmed. Perlin called the planned missile a “big bird” and the drone a “small bird.” He emphasized: “The order is rocket, drone, rocket.”
The SBU reported that it had recovered drones, warheads and mines from one of the arrested Ukrainian accomplices. He and other members of the alleged network face treason and terrorism charges. The FSB promised to pay $50,000 if the “business” was carried out successfully, it was said.
SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk was quoted by his Telegram agency as saying: “The terrorist attack, which was supposed to be Putin’s inauguration gift, was really a failure of Russian special services.” Maluk added: “We must not forget that the enemy is strong and experienced. He cannot be underestimated.”
Moscow had no immediate comment. The Kremlin declined to comment last month when asked about the arrest in Poland of a man accused of working with Russian intelligence to prepare another possible attempt to kill Zelensky. Last fall, the president said there were at least five Russian plots to kill him.
One intelligence source in Kiev said it was unclear whether senior officials in Moscow authorized the plot. They suggested that it might be the result of an operation by mid-level officers seeking to impress their superiors. “They probably acted on their own initiative,” the source said.
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