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The security service in Ukraine, (SBU), says it has foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other high-ranking Ukrainian officials. Two Ukrainian government protection unit colonels have been arrested.
The SBU said they were part of a network of agents belonging to the Russian state security service (FSB). They had reportedly been searching for willing "executors" among Mr Zelensky's bodyguards to kidnap and kill him.
The Ukrainian leader said at the start of the invasion he was Russia's "number one target". Other targets included military intelligence head Kyrylo Budanov and SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk, the agency added. The group had reportedly planned to kill Mr Budanov before Orthodox Easter, which this year fell on 5 May.
According to the SBU, the plotters had aimed to use a mole to get information about his location, which they would then have attacked with rockets, drones and anti-tank grenades.
One of the officers who was later arrested had already bought drones and anti-personnel mines, the SBU said.
SBU head Vasyl Malyuk said the attack was supposed to be "a gift to Putin before the inauguration" - referring to Russia's Vladimir Putin who was sworn in for a fifth term as president at the Kremlin on Tuesday.
The two Ukrainian officials are being held on suspicion of treason and of preparing a terrorist act.
The SBU said three FSB employees oversaw the organization and the attack. One of them, named Dmytro Perlin, had been recruiting "moles" since before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Another FSB employee, Oleksiy Kornev, reportedly held "conspiratorial" meetings "in neighboring European states" before the invasion with one of the Ukrainian colonels arrested.
In a released interrogation with one of the suspects, they can be heard describing how they were paid thousands of dollars directly by parcels or indirectly through their relatives. It is not clear whether he was speaking under duress or not.
The foreign ministry in Kyiv condemned the move as showing "the desperation of the Russian state machine and propaganda", and pointed out that the International Criminal Court had issued a warrant for Vladimir Putin's arrest.
Lewis Musonye
