Russian ‘Day of the Jackal' plot to assassinate Zelensky at Polish airport foiled by Ukraine as would-be hitman arrested
Russia's feared FSB spy service had activated a sleeper agent to carry out the hit in Poland.
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The would-be killer was a retired military officer, Ukraine's SBU spy service said yesterday.
He had been recruited 'decades earlier' and was planning to kill Zelensky at Poland's Rzeszów Airport – where British troops were based.
It echoes the plot of the Jackal spy thriller – remade with Eddie Redmayne last year – in which a sniper attempts to a kill high value target but ultimately fails.
Ukraine's SBU spy chief Lt Gen Vasyl Maliuk said the FSB agent plotted 'several options' including a sniper and a drone.
He said: 'The task was the physical elimination of President Zelensky at Rzeszow airport.
'Several options were considered. One of them was an FPV drone, the other was a sniper.'
Maliuk said the sleeper agent had been recruited through nostaliga for the collapsed USSR and "nurtured" over many years.
He was detained in a joint operation with Poland's Homeland Security Agency.
He claimed over 500 Russian spies had been caught during the war – including two senior colonels whose job was to guard top officials.
Maliuk said the boss of the FSB's feared Fifth Service, Lt Gen Sergey Beseda, was sacked by President Putin when the plots failed.
Ukrainian troops advance as they blast Russian self-propelled howitzer
Details emerged as President Zelensky swooped into London for talks with Keir Starmer on military aid.
Both men have flown through Rzeszow travelling to and from Ukraine.
Zelensky told The Sun he had lost track of all the attempts to kill him, and compared it to a bout of covid.
He said: 'The first one is very interesting, when it is the first time, and after that it is just like Covid.
'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 just sharing with you detail that one more group came to Ukraine to [attempt] this.'
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Russian special forces parachuted into Kyiv to kill him on the first day of Putin's full scale invasion, on Feb 24, 2022.
In February, Zelensky also revealed how he almost got killed in an assassination attempt orchestrated by the Kremlin inside his secured presidential fortress.
The brave leader revealed that people died inside his office in Kyiv when Vladimir Putin sent hitmen to wipe him out and take over Ukraine.
In an interview with the Guardian, Zelensky said he was attacked by the Russians amid efforts to force Ukraine to accept a peace deal in the wake of the full-scale invasion.
If everyone wants peace why is the war in Ukraine still raging? The answer is very simple
By Jerome Starkey
EVERYONE says they want peace, so why is the war still raging in Ukraine?
The short answer is simple: Peace means very different things to very different people.
They have different goals and different motives. Vladimir Putin wants total conquest.
And he wants to be remembered as a modern Tsar who restored Russia's imperial greatness.
Ukraine wants to survive, as a sovereign independent nation.
Europe wants a chastened Russia and peace that lasts beyond six months.
Trump just wants a deal — any deal at any price — with minerals thrown in for good measure.
He wants to claim the glory and perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize for sorting out the carnage which he sees as Barack Obama and Joe Biden 's mess.
The American position is clear from the terrible deal they want Kyiv to accept.
Their so-called seven-point peace plan would freeze the war on the current front lines and force Ukraine to surrender almost all of its occupied territories — some 44,000 square miles — with almost nothing in return.
That is an area the size of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
It is roughly 20 per cent of Ukraine's sovereign territory. In return, Russia would hand back small pockets of territory, including the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and give Ukraine unhindered access to the mouth of the River Dnieper.
Moscow would also give up its ambitions to capture the parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces that its troops have been unable to take by force.
But crucially, for Ukraine, there are no security guarantees.
That means there is nothing to stop Russia catching its breath, rearming and invading again a few months or years later.
The president added: "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 did not reveal the number of people killed during the act, nor did he specify if they were Russians, Ukrainians, or both.
Details of the latest plots came as came as a massive missile and drone blitz killed at least eight people in Kyiv and injured dozens more.
Ukraine's President Zelensky said a hospital and several homes were hit when Russia fired more than 360 missiles and drones.
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