Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reportedly survived three assassination attempts in the past one week, since the beginning of the Russian onslaught against the east European nation.
According to a report in The Times, the assassination plots were successfully averted after officials in the war-hit Ukraine were alerted about them.
Media reports indicated that two groups – the Wagner group and Chechen rebels – were sent to kill president Zelenskyy.
As per a report in Washington Post, Ukrainians were alerted about the assassination attempts by the elite Chechen special forces, a unit of Kadyrovites by the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia.
Speaking to the publication, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council said that the units sent to kill Zelenskyy were "destroyed." He further said, that on Saturday, the Chechen special forces were killed at the outskirts of Kyiv.
The intelligence inputs had reportedly reached the officials in Ukraine from "anti-war" elements in the FSB.
The other group – Wagner mercenaries – that had planned to kill the Ukrainian president, was reportedly shocked to learn how Ukrainians had accurately predicted all their moves, reported The Times.
A high-ranking official told the publication that it was "eerie" to know how well-briefed Zelenskyy's security team seemed to be.
Soon after the Russian invasion began in Ukraine, the United States (US) had offered to help Zelenskyy in moving out of the war-torn country, however, the Ukraine president had rejected the offer and chose to remain in Kyiv along with his protection squad and close aides.
Zelenskyy had earlier said that he feared he was the number one target of the Russian invasion.
On Thursday, 3 March, he, however, had said that talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin was the only way to end the ongoing crisis in the country.
(With inputs from Washington Post, The Times, and AFP.)
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