Details of the assassination attempt on President Zelensky have been revealed: two colonels of the State Security Department of Ukraine have been detained on suspicion of collaborating with Russian special services. They are accused of passing secret information aimed at eliminating Zelensky, the head of intelligence and the head of the SBU. Investigators have established that this network planned to use the military personnel from the president's security for the assassination. The names of the FSB handlers who led the organization of the terrorist attack have also been revealed. The suspects face detention and life imprisonment. Therefore, the details of the colonels' detention and their connections with Russian special services have been studied in detail.
Details of the assassination attempt on Zelenskyy have been revealed: journalists have identified the detained colonels who had ties to Russian special services. One of them, Colonel Andriy Guk, was detained in his luxurious house in Koncha Zaspa, where weapons that had disappeared in February were found. Another colonel, Derkach, was detained in Sumy region, where he celebrated Easter. They are accused of collaborating with Russian special services and preparing an assassination attempt. These events may lead to the resignation of the head of the State Security Department. The Russian agents' plan included surveillance, a missile strike, and a drone attack. The United States responded by condemning the immorality of the Putin regime.
Revealing the traitors: an operation to identify and detain the perpetrators is a fascinating story that MP Andriy Osadchuk revealed in his interview with Radio NV. He emphasized that not only were assassination attempts on senior officials planned, but FSB agents were also discovered at the highest level of law enforcement agencies. This unfolded in the State Security Department, where individuals with access and knowledge were close to top officials. The SBU successfully conducted a complex operation with a minimum staff and under the direct leadership of Vasyl Malyuk in order to avoid information leaks.
The occupiers made big bets on this attempt. This is how they hoped to win the war, based on the erroneous judgment that the key figure for Ukrainians is the president, and not the state itself. This was stated by Ukrainian political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko. “Of course, now the bet was on us ‘falling asleep’. They are based on a very banal idea, they measure themselves by themselves – that the key figure is the leader, the first person. For them, the state, national identity means nothing, they proceed from the fact that Ukraine as such does not exist. They did not think that people would fight for Ukraine, that Ukrainians are a nation. They thought – we will kill the president and that’s it,” he said.
If the Russians did manage to kill Zelensky, according to the law, the head of state would be temporarily appointed the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk. But, according to the expert, he does not have Zelensky's authority, so destabilization processes would begin in the country. Which is exactly what the Russian Federation was counting on. “I do not think that this would lead to fatal consequences, there is still a military leadership that would continue to carry out its work, but in a political sense there would be a problem of replacing the president and a person with the same authority as Zelensky would not be found now. It would take time. And the Russians and Russian troops could take advantage of this for some time,” Volodymyr Fesenko noted.
The political scientist believes that, most likely, a temporary government would be formed in the country, consisting of key political figures. There would also be the problem of elections, which cannot be held under martial law. “The maximum that is possible is the creation of a collective leadership of the country, which would take over the management of the country’s defense and so on, after all, the country is in a state of war and the situation at the front is not easy,” he stressed.
Will there be more assassination attempts? Military expert Ivan Stupak also spoke about the assassination attempt on Zelensky. He believes that now the president must make urgent decisions on changing the leadership of the UDO, but is sure that there will be more attempts to kill the head of state. “An assassination attempt on senior state officials is always a disaster for the state. An assassination attempt on senior state officials in wartime and prepared by people who were supposed to provide security is a double disaster with the bitter and rotten sauce of betrayal.
Honor and respect to the SBU employees who were able to spot, warn and detain all (or almost all) of those involved. I think that no one will have any thoughts about a possible staging and provocation, because all the preparation actually took place under the leadership of the FSB,” he noted. The expert noted two particularly negative points: two of the three FSB officers involved in the preparation of the assassination attempt were our former compatriots — one originally from Kharkiv, and the other from Kyiv; the amount of the reward: it turns out that for $3,000 a month, you can easily buy a colonel on parole.
He believes that the president needs to personally take urgent and drastic steps: changes in the top leadership of the UDO; personally participate in the life of the organization that provides his protection; get rid of people who beautifully imitate the process (show the rumble of wheels), but in reality stand still, because lives depend on them.
How many times did they try to kill Zelensky? The SBU emphasized that the Russian FSB once again confirmed the status of a terrorist organization. Let us recall that Zelensky has already survived more than a dozen attempts on his life. The last dangerous incident occurred in Odessa during Zelensky's visit. On March 6, a Russian missile hit 500 meters from the president's motorcade. At that time, the head of state was on his way to a meeting with the Greek delegation. The Prime Minister of Greece, a NATO country, was also there. And on March 18, another piece of news broke the network - the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation was preparing a new attempt on Zelensky. For this, Russian intelligence recruited a Polish citizen, Pavel K., who collected information about the airport in the city of Rzeszow. It is from there that Zelensky flies to international meetings around the world.
The high-profile detention of the attacker by Polish colleagues was then commented on by the SBU. They say that they worked and discovered the gunner together with the Poles. Pokydko was detained. He faces a term in a Polish prison. Earlier, Zelensky was asked how he manages to hold on when the entire Russian power machine is working, in particular, to destroy him. The president joked then. He says that he was reported about so many attempts that there is no time to react to them.
Attempted assassination of Zelensky: danger and persecution
In the context of the military conflict, the President's Office on Bankova Street has turned into a real fortress, with small checkpoints at the entrances and exits, and windows covered with improvised barricades. Zelensky's deputy said that during the first weeks of the war, at least ten attempts were made on the president. This is not the first time that Zelensky has been tried to be killed. In 2023, the SBU prevented an attempt to eliminate Zelensky with an air strike on the southern bridge of Mykolaiv during one of his trips.
According to reports, attempts were made to assassinate Zelensky even before his presidency. Former Ukrainian intelligence officer Valery Kur noted that there had been numerous assassination attempts on Zelensky, comparing them to those on Fidel Castro. The first attempt to assassinate the future president came as a result of a joke about him by Ramzan Kadyrov, the governor of Chechnya. Another team, probably from Russia, attempted to assassinate him after his refusal to yield to the Kremlin’s interests and implement the Minsk agreements according to Moscow’s interpretation.
These events indicate serious threats to Zelenskyy's life and security that arose both before and during his presidency.
