Assassination nation: Russia has Zelensky in its crosshairs

Some Soviet-era habits for the Kremlin are hard to break. Assassination is at the top of the list. Purges are a close second.

Many victims have succumbed to Russian cups of tea laced with poison, fallen out of open windows, suffered heart attacks and — a KGB favorite — lead poisoning from a 9mm Makarov pistol.

Last week, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, told the state-run TASS media outlet that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a “legitimate military target.” According to Medvedev, “[Zelensky] already heads a political regime hostile to Russia, which is waging war on us.” He went on to add that, “leaders of countries waging war are always considered a legitimate military target.” 

Medvedev is correct only that Zelensky is Ukraine’s leader. But rather than waging war on Russia, he is leading his country’s self-defense. Remember, it was Russia that invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

What the Kremlin believed would take 10 days has morphed into 28 months of sustained combat operations. After 505,100 Russian casualties, there is no end in sight. This puts Zelensky square in the sights of Russian, Chechen, Wagner mercenary and even Ukrainian assassins — a continuation of Russia’s mafia-state tradition.

The Kremlin had to know Ukraine’s fearless, bold and charismatic leader would be a problem when Zelensky refused evacuation, telling the Biden administration, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.” Ukraine rallied behind its Churchillian leader, as did NATO and the U.S. 

Early in the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin knew he could not defeat Ukraine and that his best shot at victory was to eliminate Zelensky. Moscow dispatched an assassination squad from Chechnya in March 2022 to remove the nuisance. They were identified and eliminated by Ukrainian security forces on the outskirts of Kyiv. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov would later confirm on his Telegram channel that two servicemen were killed and six others injured. 

Shortly afterward, then-Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council secretary Oleksiy Danilov, reported that Zelensky had survived multiple assassination attempts by Wagner PMC mercenaries and Chechen special forces. He survived in part thanks to the cooperation of anti-war intelligence officers in Russia’s Federal Security Services who alerted Ukrainian officials. 

Zelensky has since survived at least a dozen assassination attempts. Last March, he narrowly avoided his demise in the Black Sea port city of Odesa when a Russian missile exploded 500 meters from the convoy carrying him and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. A successful strike could have brought NATO into the war.

The Russian Defense Ministry took credit for the strike, claiming, “The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a high-precision missile attack on a hangar in the industrial port district of Odesa.” Moscow described the target as an area “where preparations were underway for the combat use of unmanned boats of the armed forces of Ukraine.” 

Was it coincidence? Probably not.

The most recent plot to assassinate Zelensky — an inside job — was foiled by Ukrainian officials this month. Two Ukrainian colonels assigned to the State Security Administration had been hired by the FSB to identify people close to Zelensky’s security detail who could “take him hostage and later kill him” and assassinate two other senior security officials around the Orthodox Easter holiday.

This plot, for which the Russians provided attack drones, ammunition for a rocket launcher and anti-personnel mines, was to involve a “multilayered attack involving a rocket strike, followed by a drone attack to kill people who were fleeing and then a second rocket strike.” The colonels allegedly involved were arrested before they could carry it out. 

Not even family members are safe. The wife of Ukraine’s intelligence chief was poisoned in November 2023. The Western mafia used to respect family members, but the Russian way is to make problems go away by any means necessary.

For Putin and his generals, Zelensky and his senior staff are the only thing preventing the complete genocidal destruction of Ukraine, its people and its culture. 

Russia will keep trying. The Kremlin needs Zelensky dead, as he himself put it, “by the end of 2024. The name of the operation is Maidan 3. It is meant to change the president…They will use any instruments they have.”

But the results of such an assassination may prove disappointing for Moscow. According to a study by Benjamin F. Jones and Benjamin A. Olken at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, “assassinations of autocrats produce substantial changes in the country’s institutions, while assassinations of democrats do not.”  

Continuity of governance is the difference, and the Ukrainians have a plan in case Zelensky meets his demise. As one opposition lawmaker put it, “When the president is unable to fulfill his duties, the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine [the Ukrainian parliament] takes over his responsibilities.”  

Adrian Karatnycky, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, reasons that “the country has reached a point of very substantial solidarity and national unity, so if something terrible happened to Zelenskyy, it would not be as decisive as you might think.”

Priority number one remains keeping Zelensky alive. Ukraine’s security service has done an incredible job protecting the president from external threats. This month’s insider threat resulted in the firing of Sergiv Leonidovich Rud, the head of the State Protection Department of Ukraine, in whom Zelensky had apparently lost confidence.

One thing is certain: Operations security and communications discipline must be rigorously enforced. Zelensky likes to visit the front to encourage and rally his soldiers and Ukrainian civilians, and that makes him vulnerable. 

The geolocation of cell phones on today’s battlefield is a common occurrence. Drones and missiles can be used to strike locations on the battlefield quickly and with tremendous accuracy. It is imperative that travel plans be safeguarded, cell phones turned off and personnel interacting with Zelensky thoroughly vetted.

Ukraine has proven to have a strong network of intelligence and counterintelligence. But the Ukrainians have to be right all the time. The assassin?  Just once.

Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.