Updated 01:26 | Published at 01:24
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of plotting to assassinate Volodymyr Zelenskyi.
It is one of a dozen or so assassination attempts on the Ukrainian president that have been thwarted.
Among other things, Russia has planned to kill Zelenskyi with parachute attacks in Kiev – and with “massive airstrikes”.
A woman in Ukraine has been arrested, accused of helping Russia prepare an attack on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian security service SBU said.
According to the SBU, the woman tried to obtain details about Zelenskyi’s trip to the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv so that the Russians could prepare a “massive air strike” against the area, the security service writes.
The woman was allegedly caught red-handed trying to send information to Russia – the night before Zelensky’s visit to Mykolaiv at the end of July. At that time, the SBU had kept track of the woman for a while, but continued to follow her to learn more about her Russian clients and the assignments she received from them, writes the SBU.
Visited hospital
The spy had driven to various locations in the region, taken photos and video clips, and compiled a list of times and locations for the president’s tentative itinerary. One of the goals was to map out how Zelensky’s motorcade would travel through the city.
During the trip, Zelenskyj visited local hospitals, among other things, to greet injured soldiers.
The SBU has shared images of both chat logs between the spy and her Russian client – as well as handwritten papers listing times and places in Mykolaiv. The handwritten notes contained, among other things, information about Ukrainian military facilities, including “barracks” and “medical units”.
The woman, described as a resident of Otjakiv in the Mykolaiv region, had also tried to pump acquaintances in the area for information.
Now she risks being sentenced to twelve years in prison.
“Total madhouse”
This is not the first time that Russia has tried to assassinate Zelenskyi. Already on the first day of the Russian invasion, there was a plan to clear the Ukrainian president out of the way.
On February 24, 2022, Russian paratroopers dropped into Kiev to kill or capture Zelenskyi and his family, wrote Time magazine in an article last April.
As Ukrainian forces fought off the first Russian onslaught on the streets of Kiev, Zelensky’s guards barricaded the compound he was in with police barricades and piles of plywood, Time wrote.
And Zelensky himself got ready to fight.
Ukraine’s former presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych told the newspaper that rifles and bulletproof vests were distributed to Zelenskyi and a dozen aides to the president – when Russian military made two attempts to storm the presidential compound.
– It was a total madhouse, said Arestovych.
– Automatic weapons for everyone.
Dozen attempted murders
Zelenskyi’s bodyguards advised him to flee the compound – a call he ignored. When British and American forces offered to help evacuate the president, he responded with a sentence that quickly became well known:
– I need ammunition, not a ride.
Last March, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoljak said Zelensky survived more than a dozen assassination attempts.
– Foreign sources speak of two or three attempts. I think there have been more than a dozen such attempts. We are constantly receiving information that there are certain intelligence groups that are trying to get into government quarters and the like, Podoljak said, according to the newspaper Ukrainian Pravda.
– Western intelligence correctly states that Putin’s main target was Zelenskyi when it comes to attacking government quarters and trying to kill the country’s main leaders.
Refuses to isolate
In an interview with CNN in July, shortly before the latest assassination attempt, Zelenskyy spoke about what it’s like to live as the main target of the Russian military.
– If I think about it all the time, I will just shut myself off. Much like Putin now, who does not leave his bunker, Zelenskyy said.
He also said that he thinks it is important that Ukrainians see that their president is also being threatened.
– If I isolate myself, I will not understand what is happening around me in the country. I will lose touch with society. And if I lose this connection, we would lose society. I firmly believe that society needs to see that if people are at risk, their president is also at risk – along with them.