Zelensky revealed more details about the early assassination attempts on his life

On February 12th, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky provided the world with more details about the Russian assassination attempts on his life at the outset of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

While speaking with The Guardian during a wide-ranging interview, Zelensky revealed that some individuals were killed inside the presidential office during the early threats on his life. However, Zelensky was scant on the specifics. 

"There were people who wanted to kill (me), there were gunshots, and more. Some people were killed here, inside the Presidential Office, others were defending us," Zelensky revealed according to The Kyiv Independent. 

The Ukrainian President did not say whether or not the casualties inside the presidential office were Russian, Ukrainian, or from both sides. However, he did say that the circumstances that led to those deaths occurred amid Russian pressure to reach a peace deal at the time.  

Zelensky’s comments shed some light on what was happening in the chaotic early days and weeks of the war. It was a time when Russian forces were moving freely throughout Ukraine and finding their way deep into the country’s capital. 

The Kyiv Independent reported that there were at least three attempts on Zelensky’s life in March 2022 ahead of Russia’s push to capture Kyiv. These assassination attempts on Zelensky’s life were widely reported by news outlets at the time. 

Ukrainian officials claimed the three attempts on Zelensky’s life in March 2022 included an attack by a group of Chechen soldiers who were eliminated after Ukrainian officials were tipped off to their intentions by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). 

At the time, Newsweek reported that it was the former head of the Ukrainian National Security Council, Oleksiy Danilov, who revealed the three attempts on Zelensky’s life in March 2022, all of which he claimed took place over the span of a week. 

"We are well aware of the special operation that was to take place directly by the Kadyrovites to eliminate our president," Danilov told Ukrainian media. "We have received information from the FSB, who today do not want to take part in this bloody war.”

The number of attempts on Zelensky’s life only grew after the initial invasion began, but it is still unclear how many plots the Ukrainian President has survived. Other Ukrainian officials claimed the number could have been in the dozens. 

“Our foreign partners are talking about two or three attempts. I believe that there were more than a dozen attempts,” presidential adviser Mikhail Podolyak told the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda on March 9th, 2022, according to Business Insider.  

"We have a very powerful network of intelligence and counterintelligence. They track it all, and all these groups are being liquidated,” Podolyak also said in a video posted on Ukrainska Pravda’s website. “We understand all the plans, and our counterintelligence works on them.”

In November 2023, while speaking with the British news tabloid The Sun, Zelensky revealed that he had lost count of the number of attempts on his life but thought that he survived no fewer than five or six attempts. 

“The first one is very interesting,” Zelensky said according to NBC News. “First of all, people don’t know what to do with it and it’s looking very scary. And then after that, it is just intelligence sharing with you detail that one more group came to Ukraine to [attempt] this.”

The most recent and last attempt on Zelensky’s life that has been made public occurred in May 2024. The Ukrainian Security Service arrested two security officials who were part of a larger network of agents planning to kidnap and kill Zelensky. 

Foreign Policy magazine noted that the plot also reportedly planned to target the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov and security service chief Vasyl Malyuk. 

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