An assassination attempt against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by Russian-aligned Chechens has been foiled, a senior Ukrainian official said, according to Yahoo News.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said on Ukrainian television on Tuesday that an “elite group” of Chechens had arrived in Kyiv to kill the Ukrainian president.
He said they were in two units, one of which was captured, while the other was under fire from Ukrainian forces.
“The Kadyrovites’ elite group, which came here specifically to eliminate our president, was directly destroyed,” he said. Kadyrovites refers to a Chechen paramilitary group accused of a number of human-rights violations and abuses. They serve at the pleasure of Razman Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic and a close ally of Vladimir Putin.
It was not immediately clear how close they got to President Zelensky.
According to US intelligence, a Russian aim has been to “decapitate” the Ukrainian government by removing its leadership.
As noted by Yahoo News, “Western leaders have urged Zelensky to flee the country, but he has remained in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Responding to an offer of evacuation by the United States, Zelensky reportedly replied that “the fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
“No one is going to break us. We are strong. We are Ukrainians,” the Ukrainian president said in an address before the European Parliament on Tuesday. “We have a desire to see our children alive. I think it’s a fair one.”
Read the entire report on Yahoo News.
