[Skybird]

Tagesspiegel on the assassination plans against Zelensky:


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj has survived at least three assassination attempts in recent days, the Times reports. Two different groups are said to have received orders to kill Selenskyj: mercenaries from the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group and Chechen special forces.

Both were thwarted, according to the report, by wartime opponents within Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). According to several media reports, Ukraine's Minister of National Security and Defense confirmed the assassination attempts.

On Saturday, the first attempt was made, according to the report: Ukrainian security officials said Chechen assassins were "eliminated" on the outskirts of Ukraine's capital, Kiev, before they could reach the president. According to Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, Russian spies from the FSB, Russia's successor to the KGB, reportedly informed them of the plans - to condemn the invasion.

"I can say that we have received information from the FSB, which does not want to participate in this bloody war," Danilov said on Ukrainian television. The group is said to be the Kadyrov Elite Group, which reports to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

Separate from the Chechen attempts to kill the Ukrainian president, Wagner mercenaries reportedly made their own attempts to overthrow the government. A roughly 400-man group is believed to have been stationed in Kiev since late January for the purpose, tracking the activities of 24 high-level Ukrainian targets, according to the Times. The force is considered Russia's notorious "shadow army."

The Wagner mercenaries were supposed to wait for the "Spetsnaz," a Russian special forces unit, to create a safe corridor for them out of Kiev so they could escape after the attacks were carried out. They would have carried out the attacks in the course of storming Kiev, which would have provided them with enough distraction. However, the Russian military convoy outside the city had difficulty making headway and slowed the attack significantly.

A plan apparently failed because the mercenaries reached the top ranks of the Ukrainian government on Saturday morning, after which Kiev imposed a 36-hour "hard" curfew and sent everyone indoors so soldiers could search the streets for Russian saboteurs, according to the Daily Mail.

In their previous attempts, the mercenaries were said to have already suffered casualties and were worried about how accurately the Ukrainians had anticipated their moves. According to the Times, a source close to the group said it was "uncanny" how well informed Selenskyj's security team appeared to be.

The mercenaries were tasked with a "very high-profile mission": the beheading of a head of state, a diplomatic source told the Times. "In terms of the impact on Russian politics, this would be perhaps the biggest mission they have carried out so far. It would have a huge impact on the war," the source continued. "It only takes one of them to get lucky and they all go home with a bonus," the Times was told.

A specialist on the Russian mercenary group Wagner said that the elite "Spetsnaz" troops would probably be more capable of taking out the president because they would have access to more equipment. According to the source, however, it would make more sense for Russia to rely on the Wagner force to take out the president. Unlike Russian soldiers, the Kremlin could deny any connection here.

The Wagner Group has already been in Ukraine since 2014, when Russian fighters in civilian clothes were sent to the Donbass to foment conflict. Most recently, they have also been active in Syria and the West African country of Mali.

Russia denies its links to the Wagner group. According to the Times, the Wagner Group is said to be led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. He is considered "Putin's chef," and owns several bot factories and an online army. In the wake of the West's sanctions against Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin is also on the list as a close friend of the Kremlin chief.

The group is said to be under intense pressure from Moscow to get its job done. It apparently wanted to eliminate the 24 targets on its list within a few days. Among them, according to a report in the Daily Mail, were the Ukrainian prime minister, the entire cabinet, the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, and his brother Vladimir.

The mercenaries are believed to have drawn up plans for another attempt before the weekend. One theory, as reported by the Times, is that the group was trying to determine Selenskyj's whereabouts in order to mark him with a laser. After that, the Russian air force could fly in and drop a bomb.

For the Ukrainian president, the attempted attacks are not news: He has heard warnings about them from U.S. officials for weeks, the Washington Post reports. In a video message on the night of Feb. 26, he contradicted rumors that he had already left the country. "I will stay in the capital, stay with my people," he said, adding, "According to our information, the enemy has declared me target No. 1, my family target No. 2." He also warned against Russian "sabotage groups."

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. government offered to help Selenskyj leave Kiev to prevent him from being captured or killed by advancing Russian forces. Selenskyj declined the offer, saying instead, "I need ammunition, not a ride."

The Ukrainian president, according to the Daily Mail, has surrounded himself with a trusted team and is constantly on the move with ever-varying communication methods to evade the henchmen. Several times a day, he checks in with his people via video message or social media to continue fighting the Russian invasion.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)