Assassination attempts on Volodymyr Zelenskyy

In order to quickly end the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia planned to have groups enter Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and destroy Ukraine's leadership.^[3] Presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak stated that "Russia's key intention [was] to remove the country's top leadership, create maximum panic, and try to establish its own puppet government".^[4]

According to the Ukrainian government, in early February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin instructed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to eliminate Ukrainian leaders.^[5] In early March, Ukraine intelligence said that Chechen commandos sent to assassinate Zelenskyy had been "eliminated", with help from FSB agents sympathetic to Ukraine.^[6]

More than 400 Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group were reported to have been in Kyiv by late February 2022, with orders to assassinate Zelenskyy and destabilize the government enough for Russia to take control.^[7]

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Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer, serving as the current president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012.

Ramzan Kadyrov

Ramzan Kadyrov

Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov is a Russian politician who currently serves as the Head of the Chechen Republic. He was formerly affiliated to the Chechen independence movement, through his father who was the separatist appointed mufti of Chechnya. He is a colonel general in the Russian military.

Federal Security Service

Federal Security Service

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) is the principal security forces of Russia and the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB; its immediate predecessor was the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) which was reorganized into the FSB in 1995. The three major structural successor components of the former KGB that remain administratively independent of the FSB are the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Protective Service (FSO), and the Main Directorate of Special Programs of the President of the Russian Federation (GUSP).

Wagner Group

Wagner Group

The Wagner Group, also known as PMC Wagner, is a Russian paramilitary organization. It is variously described as a private military company (PMC), a network of mercenaries, or a de facto private army of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The group operates beyond the law in Russia, where private military contractors are officially forbidden. While the Wagner Group itself is not ideologically driven, various elements of Wagner have been linked to neo-Nazism and far-right extremism.

During the conflict there were conflicting accounts of the number of assassination attempts made against Zelenskyy. Presidential advisor Podoliyak referenced the issue while speaking to the Ukrainian Pravda news outlet, saying, "Our foreign partners are talking about two or three attempts. I believe that there were more than a dozen attempts".^[8]

In addition, on Saturday, 26 February 2022, an assassination attempt by a group of Chechen mercenaries was prevented on the outskirts of Kyiv with the would be assassins killed.^[5]

In early March 2022, the head of Ukraine's National Security Council, Oleksiy Danilov, said that Zelenskyy had survived three assassination attempts in one week. Danilov credited the aid of anti-war intelligence officers within Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) who shared information with Ukrainian forces about the planned attacks by two groups of assassins from Chechnya.^[9]

During an interview with CBS, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the Ukrainian government had prepared for the potential death of Zelenskyy in the invasion, but would not disclose additional details.^[10]