Russia’s assassination attempts on Volodymyr Zelensky revealed

The Ukraine President has survived a dozen assassination attempts in the first two weeks of the war and remains Russia’s number one target.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has already survived more than a dozen assassination attempts in the first two weeks of the war, and still remains Russia’s “main target”, according to one of his key advisers.

“We have a very powerful network of intelligence and counterintelligence – they track it all,” presidential adviser Mikhail Podolyak told the outlet Ukrainian Pravda.

Thwarted attempts by infiltrators have included would-be assassins who have been “liquidated” while attempting to get to Mr Zelensky’s government quarters, he said.

“Our foreign partners are talking about two or three attempts. I believe that there were more than a dozen such attempts,” Mr Podolyak said, referring to an earlier claim involving the lower figure nearly a week ago, the New York Post reports.

Mr Podolyak said the “risks have not disappeared” for his nation’s 44-year-old president, who defiantly revealed his location in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on Monday.

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Zelensky has survived ‘more than a dozen’ assassination attempts, an aide says. Picture: AFP

The adviser backed Mr Zelensky’s claim early in the invasion that he was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s number one target, with his wife Olena Zelenska and children Aleksandra and Kiril second.

“Western intelligence is right to say that the main target for Putin was Mr Zelensky in terms of attacking the government quarter and trying to kill the country’s key manager,” said Mr Podolyak, a member of Ukraine’s delegation who has previously met Kremlin officials for doomed peace talks.

The Times of London has said the shadowy, Kremlin-backed Wagner Group and Chechen special forces were behind the first three thwarted assassination plots against Mr Zelensky.

“They would be going in there with a very high-profile mission, something that the Russians would want to be deniable – a decapitation of a head of state is a huge mission,” a diplomatic source told the newspaper.

“In terms of the impact on Russian sovereign policy, this would be perhaps their biggest mission so far. It would have a major impact on the war.”

There are still more than 400 Wagner Group members in Kyiv, after its members infiltrated Ukraine with a “kill list” of 24 officials whose deaths would cause chaos in Ukrainian government, sources told the Times.

In December, the European Union moved to sanction the Wagner Group and its associates for serious human rights abuses.

These accusations included torture and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and killings, and destabilising activities in countries including Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic and Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Despite the threats, the Ukraine President has repeatedly vowed to stay in the capital, even sharing a video showing him in his office.

“On Bankova Street,” he said on Monday, referring to where the presidential offices are located, and showing Gorodetsky House, which sits across the street from his offices.

“Not hiding, and I’m not afraid of anyone,” he said.

The aftermath of the Russian army bombardment of a children’s hospital in Mariupol, southeastern Ukraine. Picture: Ukraine Armed Forces/ EyePress News via AFP

Mariupol city council said the maternity and children’s hospital had been destroyed. Picture: Ukraine Armed Forces/EyePress News via AFP

At the start of the conflict on February 24, the US offered to evacuate Mr Zelensky from Kyiv as the siege unfolded. It was an offer he declined.

“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

Mr Zelensky, who has remained in the capital of Kyiv amid intensifying fighting, said in a speech earlier this week that Ukraine would ultimately be triumphant.

“Ukrainians, we know exactly what we are defending,” he said.

“We will definitely win. Glory to each of our soldiers. Glory to Ukraine.”

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission