Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday said that his country’s intelligence service had uncovered plans for a Russia-backed coup d’etat in the country set for next week that allegedly involves one of Ukraine’s richest oligarchs.
The oligarch and the Russian government rejected the allegations.
In Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he is spending a holiday weekend, US President Joe Biden expressed concern at the coup allegations and renewed US support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and self-government.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Zelenskiy told a news conference in Kyiv that he had received information that a coup was being planned for next Wednesday or Thursday.
He did not give many details to back up his allegation, but pointed to a suspected role of Ukraine’s richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov.
The president said that Ukrainian intelligence has audio recordings of an alleged meeting between Russian and Ukrainian officials discussing a plan for a coup allegedly funded by Akhmetov, whose fortune is estimated at US$7.5 billion.
Zelenskiy refused to disclose further details about the alleged coup, saying only that he does not plan to flee the country.
Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegations in comments to journalists in Moscow.
“Russia had no plans to get involved. Russia never does such things at all,” Peskov said.
Akhmetov called Zelenskiy’s allegations “an absolute lie.”
“I am outraged by the spread of this lie, no matter what the President’s motives are,” Akhmetov said in a statement, relayed to The Associated Press by his spokeswoman, Anna Terekhova.
Asked about the alleged coup plans, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried said: “We are in touch with the Ukrainian government to discuss this further, and we’re working to obtain additional information.”
Biden told US reporters that he expected to talk to Russian president Vladimir Putin and Zelenskiy, “in all probability.”
Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kiev-based political analyst and head of the Penta Center think tank, told reporters that Zelenskiy targeted Akhmetov after a “proper information war” was waged against the president over the past two months on TV channels the oligarch owns.
A mass protest in front of the president’s office is also being planned for Wednesday.
The analyst pointed to great discontent among Ukrainian oligarchs, including Akhmetov, over a law pushed by Zelenskiy that limits their influence on politics.
Fesenko called Zelenskiy’s reference to Akhmetov in connection with the alleged coup “a pre-emptive signal” for the oligarch not to get in involved in “risky political ventures, cross the ‘red lines’ and negotiate with Moscow.”
In the past few weeks, Ukrainian and Western officials have expressed concern that a Russian military buildup near Ukraine could signal plans by Moscow to invade its ex-Soviet neighbor.
The Kremlin says it has no such intention, and has accused Ukraine and its Western backers of making the claims to cover up their own allegedly aggressive designs.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine has full control of its borders and is ready for any escalation of the conflict with Russia.
However, he noted that the media are engaged in fearmongering over the possibility of such a conflict.
He also said that the head of his office, Andriy Yermak, would soon contact Russian authorities at the request of European Council President Charles Michel and German Acting Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“They want contacts between our administration and the Russian administration. I think that in the near future, Yermak will contact them. We are absolutely not against” this, Zelenskiy said.
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