FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
KIEV – How much does it cost to kill Zelensky? “They paid them between 46 thousand and 74 thousand euros.” Not even that much. «They had to hit the president as he went to record his traditional video message evening”. When? «Before Orthodox Easter, last Sunday». As? «The plan was to take him in hostage and then to kill him». Why not delete it right away? «Because at the same time they also wanted to attack two heads of the Ukrainian services, Budanov and Malyuk». That they weren’t with him… «One of the two killers had to keep an eye on Budanov’s building, wait for him to arrive by car and send a signal to the Russians. At that point they would have launched a missile, then two FPV drones to kill any survivors, finally a second missile to make a clean sweep.” And instead? «Instead we arrived first».
The two colonels. Zelensky’s two traitors. The tale of the eleventh (or maybe thirteenth?) attack on the president Ukrainian it is in a video released by the Kiev services: a man with a covered face and a disguised voice, who gives details on the price, the methods and the risks of the latest betrayal.
The two colonels“one was a department head and had important roles”, they were part of the Administration state security agency, the Udo, who must take care of the president’s safety Volodymyr Zelensky. The SBU and the SSU, the intelligence and counter-espionage services, they arrested them almost red-handed. There are interceptions. “I have at least 20-30 minutes to leave,” a Russian voice is heard saying, and then: “As you move away, you will probably hear loud explosions.” The two had been monitored for some time, it seems they had been in a relationship “since before the 2022 invasion”.
The Ukrainian 007s also give the names of the three Russian spies who contacted them: Maxim Mishustine, Dmitry Perlin, Alexey Kornev, all serving at the 5th FSB office in Moscow. Operation Zelensky it would have started a few weeks ago, perhaps with an attempt to also bribe some of the president’s bodyguards.
One of the two officers, the prosecution says, had arrived from another Ukrainian region and he had personally brought a drone to the capitalRussian ammunition for a RPG-7 rocket launchers, anti-personnel mines Mon-90. «The attack was meant to be a gift to Putin, on the occasion of his inauguration ceremony”: a nice gift, if together with Zelensky the aim was also to kill the head of the Gur military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, and that of the SSU, Vasyl Malyuk. The two arrested colonels will end up on trial, accused of high treason and aiding and abetting a terrorist attack in collaboration with enemy services. Almost certain fate, life imprisonment.
«We must never let our guard down», comments Malyuk now: «In these things, Russians are very skilled and very experienced…». So experts that we have lost count, since February 24, 2022, of how many times they have tried to eliminate “Ze”.
Last November, the Ukrainian president spoke of about ten attacks, his advisor Mychajlo Podoljak counts at least a dozen, the security secretary Oleksiy Danilov always recalls “the terrible week” in which the Russians tried three times.
It’s difficult to understand: the missiles launched on Kiev when the UN secretary, Antonio Guterres, arrived for a visit, were officially said to be a “political signal”, but various sources revealed that a certain degree of danger had been touched. One night then, as he returned from the front in the very center of a deserted Kiev, the presidential car was hit by an SUV: the episode, which had also alarmed the American services, was classified as an accident within a few hours.
The first time sure, it’s history now: it was revealed at the beginning of the war by head of the CIAWilliam Burns, Putin who parachuted a commando at Hostomel airport with the order to eliminate “that drugged neo-Nazi”. One of the last, we are not even sure that Zelensky was actually in the sights: a missile that rained down on Odessa, a few hundred meters from the armored car procession, while the president was accompanying the visit of Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis.
For sure there was a big risk in Polandin April, when the police stopped a strange Russian, Pavel K., with a bag of maps, GPS and electronic equipment. According to the Polish judiciary, the man works for the FSB and was preparing an action in a small airport south-east of the country garrisoned by American troops, in Rzeszow-Jasionka: this is the runway on the Ukrainian border used for Zelensky’s trips abroad.
Even last August, in Mykolayv, an employee of a military base appeared who had provided information to the Russians for money about an upcoming visit from “Ze”.
And what about Ramzam Kadyrov, the Chechen military leader, who is said to have come very close to the Ukrainian president in 2022? The attack was only foiled by a tip-off from an agent who had infiltrated the FSB, but the details of what really happened are unknown. It was then that it was discovered, however, that the Kremlin had commissioned a team of at least 400 menwith the aim of also hitting the top of the services: just one step below the hated Volodymyr, in the sights is the inconvenient Budanov, who undermines bridges in Crimea and has mocked the entire Wagner group several times.
Last Saturday the Tsar of Moscowin response to the arrest orders chasing him, triggered an international arrest warrant for Zelensky which applies to all the countries – from Syria to North Korea – where Zelensky will never go. But more than alive, Putin would like him dead.
There are three security circles, around the man from Kiev. And impressive 24-hour monitoring of the British and Americans through satellites, aerial reconnaissance and radar signals. Him now it moves mostly at night, on anonymous sleeping cars. No one, apart from him, ever knows in advance where and when he is going: every official occasion is embargoed and communicated to the press only after the event has taken place.
Last March, which is extremely rare, Zelensky took a journalist with him to Zaporizhzha: the photos were also checked after he got off the train, so as not to give details to the enemy.
