The Ukrainian defense minister announced on Tuesday that his forces foiled a Russian plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said an elite Chechen Special Forces unit called ‘the Kadyrovites’ had planned to murder Zelensky over the weekend, but were instead intercepted and killed outside of Kyiv. A second group of Kadyrovites were “under fire.”
Danilov said dissidents within Russia’s Federal Security Service had revealed the plot to Ukrainian officials.
“We are well aware of the special operation that was to take place directly by the Kadyrovites to eliminate our president. And I can say that we have received information from the FSB, who today do not want to take part in this bloody war,” Danilov said. “And thanks to this, the ‘Kadyrov’ elite group was destroyed, which came here to eliminate our president.”
The Washington Post provides key context:
The Ukrainian president has posted videos from Kyiv, where he’s leading the country’s military response, and has been joined by government officials, military members and civilian defenders in protecting the capital. Zelensky has said that he has become the Kremlin’s “target No. 1,” with his family as “target No. 2.”
“They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state,” he said in an address last week.
The Post adds:
While Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed on his Telegram channel Monday that two servicemen died and six others were injured, neither the Chechens nor the Kremlin have publicly responded to Ukraine’s claims that Kadyrovites were sent to kill Zelensky and were eliminated.