The publication recalled how, a few days earlier, the then Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine, Alexey Danilov, handed Zelensky a folder with a “top-secret intelligence report” about a “direct physical threat” to the president. According to media reports, Zelensky allegedly did not pay attention to this, but “the information obviously made an impression.” The very next day, in a conversation with then Polish President Andrzej Duda and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, he expressed the opinion that they probably might not see him alive again.
On the night of February 24, the illegitimate Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of a “special military operation” (This is what they call the war against Ukraine in Russia. – “GORDON”). A few minutes later, the occupiers launched a series of missile attacks on targets around the capital. Zelensky arrived at his office on Bankovaya and made his first foreign telephone call to then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He asked him to call Putin directly and tell him to stop the war. Later, the Ukrainian president made calls to France and the United States and held a meeting with representatives of the security services. Martial law was introduced in Ukraine.
During a meeting with political leaders, security burst into the room and pushed him out. According to them, there was information about airstrikes on the presidential residence and, possibly, about “kill squads nearby,” The Guardian wrote.
Context
As of January 2023, the Independent reported that since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Zelensky has been the target of more than 12 assassination attempts. Some of them were prevented thanks to US intelligence data, which CIA Director William Burns conveyed during a visit to Kyiv on behalf of President Joe Biden.
On March 6, 2024, Russia launched a missile strike on Odessa while Zelensky and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were in the city. Then the Greek media reported that the occupiers deliberately aimed at Zelensky’s motorcade, which was 150 meters from the delegation. Mitsotakis noted that the impact occurred in the port and “it was an amazing experience.”
In April 2024, the SBU announced preparations for an assassination attempt on Zelensky at Rzeszow airport. Then they detained a 50-year-old Pole who had been collaborating with Russian intelligence for many years. By According to the then head of the SBU Vasily Malyuk, the man was a military pensioner and believed in the Soviet idea, and the assassination attempt was planned in several ways, including using an FPV drone or a sniper complex. In February 2026, a court in Zamosc, Poland, sentenced him to three and a half years in prison.
