Volodymyr Zelensky: thwarted assassinations, who threatens the Ukrainian president?

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president who challenges Vladimir Putin and unites Europeans around the Ukrainian cause, is said to have escaped death three times. Will he continue to organize the resistance from his offices in Kiev, where he is under attack from the Russian armed forces?

[Mis à jour le 4 mars 2022 à 12h42] Since February 26, Volodymyr Zelensky has been provoking Vladimir Putin. With videos and messages of thanks to the countries supporting his action, he has set himself up as the standard bearer of European unity, while judging to be “the number one target” of the Russians. Faced with a more offensive than ever Vladimir Putin, his security seems increasingly threatened: this Friday, March 4, the Times reveals that he would have “survived three assassination attempts last week”.

These attempts, if not these plots, were foiled by double agents within the FSB, the Russian intelligence services. These infiltrated elements provided the information to thwart the assassination plans. The alleged culprits? The famous mercenaries of the Wagner group, known for their proximity to the Kremlin, but also the Chechen special forces sent by their president, Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov’s forces were intercepted, according to the address on Ukrainian television by Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council: “We have received information from the FSB, which does not want to participate in this war And thanks to this, Kadyrov’s elite group was destroyed, the one who came here to eliminate our president “, thus confirming that these attempts did indeed take place. If Wagner’s mercenaries were also eliminated on the outskirts of Kiev, it is still unclear how precisely. In fact, still according to the Timesthey would be about 400 to be there, and would be very difficult to dislodge.

With a list of 24 names to kill, the men of the private Wagner militia have been present in Ukraine for several weeks. Their objective ? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 400 Russian mercenaries of the Wagner force from Africa would thus have been dispatched with the ambition of entering the Ukrainian capital. According to the British daily, the Ukrainian government got wind of this presence through a note from its secret services, information which would have resulted in the proclamation of a 36-hour curfew in the Ukrainian capital.

Founded in 2014, Wagner is the first Russian private military company (PMC) in the Middle East. From 250 fighters at its beginnings, it had 2500 in 2020 for 5000 today, the figure varying according to the most informed sources. Wagner, as a Russian PMC, is advantageous for Moscow because it allows it to resort to “plausible deniability” in order to challenge its involvement in conflicts that go beyond Russian borders, and thus to rid itself of any responsibility for the possible abuses on the ground. This denial is possible thanks to the lack of legal existence of the group, which, if not registered as a commercial company, can only be defined as a nebula or an informal entity, as the researcher Emmanuel Dreyfus pointed out in a interview for the Institut Montaigne. Ignoring Western calls to order, the group’s semi-official prerogatives have expanded over the years: in addition to training, intelligence and security missions, it now participates, according to West Franceto offensive actions, always aligned with the wishes of Russian power.

Until when will the former “clown” of Ukrainian television challenge Vladimir Putin and face the second army in the world again? The ex-comedian, who became Ukrainian president in 2020 at the end of a surprise campaign, has surprised since the start of the crisis by the calm displayed in his various interventions, a composure which would have particularly struck Emmanuel Macron during his discussions. At 43, the man who was until then best known for roles in successful comedy shows in Ukraine bursts into the face of the world, multiplying video messages and calls for resistance.

In recent days, as the Russian armed forces approached downtown Kiev and the government district, beginning to encircle the capital, the Ukrainian president continued to publish numerous messages, also fueling certain conspiratorial rumors about his possible departure from Ukraine. But while there were rumors of a presence in Poland, the Ukrainian president multiplied the videos shot outdoors, filming himself with several well-recognizable buildings in the background of downtown Kiev, a few meters from government buildings. such as the Maryinski Palace, official residence of the Ukrainian presidency or the adjacent Parliament, the Rada.

Volodymyr Zelensky, who knows he is Russia’s main target, thus demonstrates an unexpected bravery that earns him praise from the Western world. To the Americans offering to exfiltrate him from Kiev, he even replied with: “this is where the fight is, I need ammunition, not a taxi”, according to a senior American intelligence official (information relayed by The New Tribune). It is with the same stubbornness that he asked to join the European Union during a videoconference with the European Parliament this Tuesday noon, even launching, in a last hope: “Don’t let us go! Prove to us that you are European!”. Ukraine’s official application for membership of the European Union had moreover been signed the day before, Monday 28 February. At a time when Vladimir Putin calls on the Ukrainian soldiers to rebel against a government which he describes as a “gang of Nazis and drug addicts” in a video published on February 24, 2022 on the website of the Russian presidency, the assassination of Ukrainian president becomes a serious probability.

Who is Volodymyr Zelensky? Short biography

Born on January 25, 1978 near Dniepropetrovsk in south-eastern Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky made a career in television, first in game shows and then winning the 2006 season of the Ukrainian version of Dancing with the Stars. In 2015, he caused a sensation in the Servant of the People series where he played a high school history teacher who mistakenly became President of Ukraine. President fighting against corruption, integrity, the character played by Volodymyr Zelensky will greatly increase his popularity. In December 2017, he obtained the transformation of the party Decisive Change Party, founded the previous year and renamed it Servant of the People, playing the analogy with the series which made him famous. At the end of 2018, he declared himself a candidate for the presidency of the republic for the election scheduled for 2019.

Surprise, he crushes his traditional rivals there, obtaining more than 30% of the vote in the first round before clearly beating outgoing President Petro Poroshenko with more than 73% of the vote. He then became the sixth and youngest president of independent Ukraine. Without a specific program, he then intends to relaunch talks with Russia on the situation in the Donbass while continuing the policy of rapprochement with the EU. The dissolution of the Assembly and the legislative elections that followed gave him a large majority. But complex issues and clouds accumulate over his presidency. Donbass war, controversy following a discussion with Donald Trump asking him to investigate the son of Joe Biden, Hunter, a member of the board of directors of a Ukrainian company, criticism of his pro-Russian entourage, management of the Covid-19 pandemic… So many points on which Volodymyr Zelensky is attacked as he tries to accelerate on the external level by relaunching the NATO membership project while proposing a meeting with Vladimir Putin, proposal remained a dead letter. In 2022, faced with a less conciliatory Biden administration, he warned Westerners, notably at the Munich security conference: “For eight years, Ukraine has been a shield. For eight years, Ukraine has held back the one of the largest armies in the world which is massed at our borders and not at those of the EU”, he says then, a few weeks before seeing his country invaded by the Russian armed forces.

Volodymyr Zelensky was already a well-known personality among the Ukrainian general public before playing the role of his life. His animation made the entertainment program Evening Quarter (Vetcherny Kvartal) one of the most watched in Ukraine at the beginning of the 21st century. He then participated in the program Danse avec les Stars as a candidate and won the 2006 season. But it was in 2013 that his life changed with a leading role: that of a history teacher propelled president of Ukraine . The series was called Servant of the People and later served as the name of his party, propelling him to the head of state in 2019.

Volodymyr Zelensky Jewish or Nazi? His response to Vladimir Putin

Volodymyr Zelensky was formally accused by Vladimir Putin in one of the Russian President’s speeches legitimizing his action in Ukraine by the presence in power of a “clique of drug addicts and neo-Nazis, who settled in Kiev and took hostage all the Ukrainian people”. The Ukrainian president-elect in 2019 reacted in a video shot a few hours later: “How could I be a Nazi? Go explain it to my grandfather, who fought in the Second World War for the army Soviet, and who died as a colonel of independent Ukraine”. Son of Oleksandr Zelensky and Rimma Zelenska, scientists of Jewish and Russian origin, Volodymyr Zelenski is a non-practicing Jew. Russian-speaking, he kept the Russian language as his first language.

Who is Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine?

She is a well-known figure among Ukrainians since the election of her husband Volodymyr Zelensky as head of the Ukrainian presidency in 2019. Olena Zelenska has also appeared on the front line since the start of the crisis between Ukraine and Russia, even speaking on Ukrainian television on the evening of February 24, 2022 in a message of support which could also be seen as a goodbye when Russian forces were already investing the suburbs of the capital, Kiev.

Does Volodymyr Zelensky have children?

Volodymyr Zelenski is the father of two children, Oleksandra born in 2005 and Kirilo born in 2013. The Ukrainian president assured on February 25 that his family was in Ukraine despite the start of the Russian offensive. Little information has circulated since about a possible evacuation of the family of the Ukrainian president.

What is Volodymyr Zelensky’s Twitter account?

Since the beginning of the Russian offensive on Ukraine, the Ukrainian president has multiplied messages on social networks, in particular via videos posted on his Facebook account and his Twitter account. Visibly in response to rumors of exile and exfiltration, the former actor shot several outdoor videos, filming himself in the streets of Kiev, with the buildings surrounding the government district and the Maryinski Palace, seat of the presidency, in the background. Ukrainian.