Recruitment of Ukrainian Officials and Collaborators
Plan for Dual Strikes Using Missiles and Drones
The Ukrainian government announced that it thwarted an assassination attempt on President Volodymyr Zelensky by Russia and arrested a soldier from the Ukrainian Defense Corps who had been recruited by Russia to participate in the assassination plan. As the war prolongs, there are growing concerns that the number of high-ranking Ukrainian officials recruited by Russia within the Ukrainian government will increase, leading to more assassination attempts and terrorist incidents.
"Russia Recruited Two High-Ranking Ukrainian Officials to Assassinate Zelensky"
On the 7th (local time), the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced that it successfully prevented Russia's assassination attempt on President Zelensky and arrested two senior officials from the Ukrainian National Security Service who were involved.
Vasyl Maliuk, head of the SBU, stated in a press release, "The arrested individuals were among five agents who planned the assassination under the direction of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). They attempted to assassinate President Zelensky and Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), and this was planned as a congratulatory gift for President Vladimir Putin’s fifth term election victory."
According to the SBU, the Ukrainian high-ranking officials recruited by Russia attempted to recruit bodyguards close to President Zelensky. They then devised an assassination plan involving a missile strike on Zelensky’s vehicle while he was moving to another location, followed by a secondary strike using a suicide drone. However, the assassination plan was exposed through the SBU’s intelligence network during the recruitment process and ultimately failed.
The SBU revealed that, based on collected evidence such as text messages and wiretapped phone calls related to the assassination attempt, an FSB agent informed the recruited Ukrainian officials that they would receive approximately $50,000 (about 68 million KRW) upon successful assassination.
2,000 High-Ranking Officials Arrested for Treason... Numbers Expected to Rise
As the Ukraine war enters its third year, acts of treason by Ukrainian high-ranking officials sympathetic to Russia have significantly increased. Russia is exploiting the chronic corruption that had long plagued the Ukrainian bureaucratic society even before the outbreak of the war.
According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), since the outbreak of the Ukraine war in February 2022, about 2,000 Ukrainian high-ranking officials who sympathized with Russia have been arrested for leaking military secrets, attempting assassinations, and terrorist acts. President Zelensky is known to have survived at least ten assassination attempts since the war began.
WSJ pointed out that the prolonged war and the sharp decline in support for the Zelensky administration have greatly increased the number of Russia sympathizers. President Zelensky’s approval rating surged to the 90% range immediately after the war began but has recently dropped significantly to the 60% range.
Concerns are also rising that President Zelensky’s external inspection activities may be curtailed. In June last year, a woman who tried to identify President Zelensky’s location during his inspection of the destroyed Kakhovka Dam site, damaged by Russian forces, and relay it to the Russian military was arrested. This spring, Polish authorities arrested a spy at the airport who was gathering information ahead of President Zelensky’s visit to Poland to send to the Russian military.
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