Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he no longer considers assassination attempts. He compared them to the coronavirus infection.
Source: index.hrTuesday, 21.11.2023. | 08:53 -> 09:33
He said that Ukrainian intelligence services have foiled at least five or six assassination attempts.
“The first (assassination) is very interesting, because it’s the first time, and then it’s like covid,” he said in an interview with the British newspaper The Sun.
The first attempt brought with it panic, he added.
“First of all, people don’t know what to do with it and it looks very scary. And after that, it’s just intelligence where they give you details that another group has come to Ukraine to try this,” Zelensky said.
It is a well-known story that Russian special forces parachuted into Kiev on the first day of Putin’s invasion last year, allegedly to kill Zelensky.
The Ukrainian president’s bodyguards sealed off his office with improvised barricades and pieces of plywood.
But when British and American officials offered to fly the president out of the capital amid fears it could fall within hours, he responded with the well-known line: “I need ammunition, not transport.”
Later, as battles raged over Kiev, Zelensky stepped out of the base to take a defiant selfie video that rallied Ukraine’s resistance by proving he was still in the capital.
Almost two years later, Zelensky said Russia still “very much wants” to oust him from power. He said he even knows the code name for their latest mission to overthrow him, which is due at the end of the year.
“The name of the operation is Maidan 3. The intention is to change the president, but maybe not by killing. I mean, it is changing. They will use all the instruments they have.”
When asked if Ukraine would risk killing Putin if the opportunity arose, Zelensky said: “It is a war and Ukraine has every right to defend itself.”
