The Announcement
According to the Ukrainian Security Service, two employees of the State Security Administration (UDO) have been arrested under suspicion of plotting to kill President Zelensky. The announcement reads below:
“The SBU exposed a network of agents of the 5th service of the FSB of the Russian Federation who were preparing the assassination of the President of Ukraine: two colonels of the UDO Counterintelligence were detained and SBU investigators foiled the plans of the FSB to eliminate the President of Ukraine and other representatives of the top military and political leadership of the state. The plans were implemented by an agent network, which was exposed in advance by the Security Service of Ukraine with the assistance of the leadership of the State Security Office. The network, whose activities were supervised by the FSB from Moscow, included two colonels of the UDO, who “leaked” secret information of the Russian Federation.”
The Plot
This revelation comes three weeks after this publication reported on the arrest of a Polish citizen for conspiring with Russia Security Services to assassinate the Ukrainian President while on a state visit to that country. The details of the proposed assassination read below:
“One of the tasks of the FSB intelligence network was to search for executors among the military close to the protection of the President, who could take the Head of State hostage and later kill him. In addition to Volodymyr Zelenskyi, the enemy planned to eliminate the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the State Administration of Ukraine Kyryll Budanov and other high-ranking officials. For example, they were going to liquidate the head of the GUR, Kyril Budanov, before Easter. The enemy’s plan was as follows: first, the recruited agent had to observe the movement of the person under guard and pass information to the enemy. According to the coordinates of the house where the official was supposed to be, a rocket attack was planned. Then they were going to attack the people who remained at the affected area with a drone. After that, the Russians planned to target with another missile, including to destroy traces of the use of the drone.”
The Charges
While the identities of the two Ukrainians have not been disclosed as of this publication, the identities of the three Russian officers that recruited them and organized the plot are listed: Maxim Mishustin, Dmytro Perlin, and Aleksii Kornev who are all employees of the 9th Department of the Operational Information Department of the 5th Service of the FSB.
The Ukrainian UDO members have been charged under the following articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: ch. 2 Art. 111 (treason committed under martial law); ch. 1 Art. 14, ch. 2 Art. 258 (preparation for a terrorist act). These come with the threat of life in prison.
The State Security Administration is the equivalent of the U.S. Secret Service in that is provides security and protection for Ukrainian government leaders. However, it does fill other roles and the comparison with the U.S. agency is not black and white.
