Ukraine on Tuesday said it had unraveled a Russian plot to assassinate senior Ukrainian political and military figures, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Two Ukrainian security officials were arrested for their links to the group, which had aimed to carry out high-profile killings ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration on Tuesday.
“The terrorist attack, which was supposed to be a gift to Putin for his inauguration, was in fact a failure of the Russian secret service,” Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) head Vasyl Maliuk said in a statement.
Photo: Reuters
Kyiv said Zelenskiy has been targeted by Russia on multiple earlier occasions, including at the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022.
The SBU said it had exposed a network of agents set up by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) tasked with identifying individuals close to Zelenskiy’s security detail who could take the Ukrainian leader hostage and kill him.
“The network, whose activities were supervised by the FSB from Moscow, included two colonels of the [Ukrainian] State Department of Protection who were leaking classified information to Russia,” the SBU said.
The department is in charge protecting the president and other senior officials and their families.
A source in Ukrainian law enforcement said that the suspects were detained “a few days ago.”
“They were really highly placed men. One of them was a head of department,” the source said.
The SBU published photographs of masked operatives in camouflage uniform arresting several suspects at night.
In a video posted on the SBU’s Web site, a man with his face blurred said his task was to “test the mood” among the presidential office’s security guards, and select someone ready to detain the president, possibly as he went to give his nightly broadcast.
Russia also planned to eliminate Maliuk, as well as Defence Intelligence of Ukraine Chief Kyrylo Budanov and other officials, the SBU said.
Budanov was due to be assassinated before Orthodox Easter, which was last weekend, the SBU said.
The assassin had been promised a reward of up to US$80,000, SBU spokesman Artem Dekhtyarenko said.
The SBU published video footage purportedly of an FSB handler telling an agent to surveil a house linked to a target, apparently Budanov, and text when he arrived.
“You’ll most likely hear a loud blast,” the man says, telling the agent to then use a drone to carry out a secondary strike.
The SBU published what it said were telephone messages between an FSB handler and a colonel in the State Department of Protection, who it said personally brought drones, rounds and anti-personnel mines to Kyiv.
It also gave names of three men it said were FSB handlers working with Ukrainian moles.
Those detained are suspected of treason and preparing a “terrorist act,” punishable by life in prison.
China’s military yesterday showed off its machine-gun equipped robot battle “dogs” at the start of its biggest ever drills with Cambodian forces. More than 2,000 troops, including 760 Chinese military personnel, are taking part in the drills at a remote training center in central Kampong Chhnang Province and at sea off Preah Sihanouk Province. The 15-day exercise, dubbed Golden Dragon, also involves 14 warships — three from China — two helicopters and 69 armored vehicles and tanks, and includes live-fire, anti-terrorism and humanitarian rescue drills. The hardware on show included the so-called “robodogs” — remote-controlled four-legged robots with automatic rifles mounted on their
A Philippine boat convoy bearing supplies for Filipino fishers yesterday said that it was headed back to port, ditching plans to sail to a reef off the Southeast Asian country after one of their boats was “constantly shadowed” by a Chinese vessel. The Atin Ito (“This Is Ours”) coalition convoy on Wednesday set sail to distribute fuel and food to fishers and assert Philippine rights in the disputed South China Sea. “They will now proceed to the Subic fish port to mark the end of their successful mission,” the group said in a statement. A Philippine Coast Guard vessel escorting the convoy was
DISPUTED WATERS: The Philippines accused China of building an artificial island on Sabina Shoal, while Beijing said Manila was trying to mislead the global community The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is committed to sustaining a presence in a disputed area of the South China Sea to ensure Beijing does not carry out reclamation activities at Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Reef), its spokesperson said yesterday. The PCG on Saturday said it had deployed a ship to Sabina Shoal, where it accused China of building an artificial island, amid an escalating maritime row, adding two other vessels were in rotational deployment in the area. Since the ship’s deployment in the middle of last month, the PCG said it had discovered piles of dead and crushed coral that had been dumped
STREET WATCH: Residents watched over barricades blocking roads and flew white flags to show that they intended to keep an eye on their neighborhoods France yesterday deployed troops to New Caledonia’s ports and international airport, banned TikTok and imposed a state of emergency after three nights of clashes that have left four dead and hundreds wounded. Pro-independence, largely indigenous protests against a French plan to impose new voting rules on its Pacific archipelago have spiraled into the deadliest violence since the 1980s, with a police officer among several killed by gunfire. On roads, the torched detritus amassed over four days of unrest was scattered amid fist-size hunks of rock and cement that appeared to have been flung during riots. Armored vehicles roved the city’s palm-lined boulevards, usually