Russian Plot to Kill Zelensky Foiled, Ukraine Says

Ukraine’s security services said on Tuesday that they had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top military and political figures. Two Ukrainian colonels accused of participating in the plot have been arrested on suspicion of treason.

The Ukrainian domestic intelligence agency, the S.B.U., said in a statement that the plot had involved a network of agents — including the two colonels — that was run by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the main successor to the K.G.B. According to the S.B.U., the agents working at Russia’s direction were tasked with identifying people close to Mr. Zelensky’s security detail who could take him hostage and later kill him.

The agency’s statement said the other top Ukrainian officials targeted in the plot included Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the S.B.U., and Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency. The Ukrainian claims could not be independently verified.

It is not the first time that Ukraine has reported a potential assassination attempt aimed at its top leaders. Mr. Zelensky said in an interview with an Italian television channel earlier this year that his security services had told him of more than 10 such efforts.

Ukraine’s security services offered few details about previous assassination plots. But this time, the agency went to some length in its statement to describe how the Ukrainian officials were to be killed.

The services said the two colonels accused in the plot belonged to the State Security Administration, which protects top officials. They had been recruited before the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to the statement, which identified three F.S.B. members — Maxim Mishustin, Dmytro Perlin and Oleksiy Kornev — as running the operation from Moscow. The two Ukrainian colonels were not named.

In a video released by the security services, a man identified as one of the colonels, his face blurred, describes details of the apparent plot that involved blocking Mr. Zelensky as he entered or left a building. The authenticity of the video could not be independently confirmed.

As for the assassination attempt aimed at General Budanov, the services said it was planned to take place before Orthodox Easter, which was celebrated on May 5. The F.S.B.’s network of agents in Ukraine was tasked with observing and passing on information about General Budanov’s whereabouts, the Ukrainian security services said.

Once his location had been confirmed and communicated, he would have been targeted in a multilayered attack involving a rocket strike, followed by a drone attack to kill people who were fleeing and then a second rocket strike, the security services said.

Weapons for the attack were provided to one of the colonels, including attack drones, ammunition for a rocket launcher and anti-personnel mines, according to the security services and Ukraine’s prosecutor general. The colonel was to pass the weapons to other agents to carry out the assault, the Ukrainian statement said.

Russia made no immediate comment about the Tuesday accusations.

The apparent assassination plot is just the latest in a series of attempted or successful attacks on Ukrainian figures.

General Budanov’s wife was poisoned late last year, according to the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, in an incident that led to widespread speculation that Russia was stepping up efforts to target Ukraine’s senior leadership. General Budanov said in February that it was difficult to say if the poisoning was an attempt to murder him, but he hinted that Russia was behind it.

Mr. Zelensky has also been the target of numerous assassination attempts, according to Ukraine’s security services. As recently as last month, the S.B.U. reported that it had arrested, in cooperation with Polish security services, a Polish man who it said had offered to spy for Russia as part of a plot to assassinate Mr. Zelensky.

Ukraine is also believed to have been involved in the killing of several pro-Kremlin voices in Russia. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that parts of the Ukrainian government authorized a car bombing that in 2022 killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist. And in December, a former Ukrainian lawmaker living near Moscow was assassinated by Ukrainian security service agents, according to a report by The Financial Times that cited two Ukrainian officials with direct knowledge of the incident.